Enchantress
by Brunette
Summary: All her life, Hattie O'Connell has been able to manipulate people to do whatever she pleases. So why is this desert chieftain playing hard to get? If you've been waiting for a sister character who actually changes things in the plot of TM, here she is.
1. Prologue

_**Author's Note. **Lately, I've been reading more carbon-copy interpretations of Rick's sister than I can handle. While I did admittedly make my peace with the rewrite with Tramps and Thieves, I've decided I want to address this plot device head-on. Want to know what would REALLY happen if Rick's sister was along for the ride? Here's a hint - everything's about to change._

**_Disclaimer. _**_Not mine. The Hattie is, and wouldn't I be grateful if SOMEBODY took the opportunity to try and write her, or a Rick's sister character more like her._

**Enchantress**

**PROLOGUE**

**Cairo - 1924**

All her life, Hattie O'Connell had had one very obvious, very overbearing problem.

At nearly twenty-three years old - by anyone's definition, her prime time - she sat poised on the edge of the barstool like a ripe, juicy pear, just waiting to be plucked off and indugled in. She sat there knowing full well of it, too, with her shapely legs crossed and dangling tantalizingly below her skirt that the flappers had so generously shortened. She leaned in just so slightly, and coudn't help a maliciously pretty little smirk every time her mouse tried to take a not-so-obvious peak down her blouse.

"And that's when I knew I had to come to Egypt, because everyone knows any treasure worth digging for is here, and this is where he _has_ to be," she was saying. She knew he wasn't listening. And she didn't mind, either.

He muttered a distracted, "Um-hmm," and kept chancing a look at her cleavage. By Hattie's standards, everything was going spectacularly well.

"You know they claim that entire garrison was killed, but I don't believe it for a second. My brother, Rick - he's stronger than that, and much smarter. I know he made it out alive. And I didn't come all this way just for some dull old desk clerk to tell me he was killed."

She picked up her drink and took a sip.

"Which isn't to say I think it's _impossible_ that he was killed. I'm only saying, if he was killed, I want to hear it from someone who was there - from someone who saw it. Not some desk clerk. Not somebody who was just too lazy to go out looking for him, and just stamped 'dead' on his papers. I'm not about to take that answer from them. I didn't spend my measely little inheritance coming all this way not to find my brother, dead or alive. That's all I'm saying."

Hattie glanced at her mouse again. He was a real mouse, too. Squeaky voice and twitching little nose and all. She liked mice.

"Mr. Gabor?"

He startled when she said his name, and gave her the stupidest grin when he saw she was looking right at him. "Please, my dear. Call me Beni."

She had this one in the bag.

"Now that's very sweet of you, Beni," she purred. The way he looked at her said he'd kill his grandmother if she asked him to. "But now I'm to the point in my boring little tale where I need your help. You see, there's this rumor flying around that you also survived that attack on those awful old ruins. You must be awfully brave and strong to survive such an ordeal."

God, how did she keep a straight face when she said this shit?

"Now won't you tell me, Beni, do you remember my brother Rick from your garrison?"

Beni smiled and tore his eyes away from her to take a drink. He nodded slowly.

"Of course, of course. Rick and I were good friends."

Somewhere beneath Hattie's pretty little facade, her heart lept. No matter how unsavory this fellow was - if he was a friend of Rick's, then he would most certainly know what happened to him.

She grabbed his hand happily. "Oh, Beni, you don't know what good news that is for me! Please, can you tell me - what happened to my brother during the attack?"

Beni startled all of the sudden, as if shaken out of a trance. His eyes got all wide and buggy, and it made her nervous. He took several quick little sips of his drink before finally meeting her eyes again.

"Oh," he kind of whined out, "Oh, my dear ... I'm _so_ sorry. But Rick O'Connell is dead."

The news hit Hattie like a kick in the gut. She just stared at him, trying desperately to catch her breath. Rick ... dead? No. _No!_ It couldn't be. Not Rick. _Not ... Rick ..._

Beni reached over to touch her shoulder, but she quickly swatted it away. How dare he? How dare this little mouse try to put a hand on her - try to comfort her when he'd just told her ... Rick ...

"My dear - "

He tried again, but Hattie couldn't keep up her little show anymore. She nearly fell in her haste to get off of that barstool. She could barely hear him protesting, and she might have tried to excuse herself. Everything around her was numb. All she could feel and hear was the rapid, terrible throbbing of her heart, caught somewhere in her throat. _Rick ... dead?_ The words kept pounding inside of her like her heart. Her eyes stung, blurring the dirty bar into a mess of ugly people and ugly promises.

She ran out into the cold desert night and took a breath of the sharp air. Nothing felt right. Nothing felt real, except the grimy wall of the bar when she leaned into it for some feeling of comfort. _Rick ... dead?_

How could he be, with a stupid little mouse like Beni Gabor alive and breathing? What kind of God lets a rodent live and a man like her brother die?

Gasps were building up in her throat, choking her until she finally let out a long, terrified sob. Without even really knowing what she was doing, she thrust her hand into the pocket in her skirt and pulled out a creased, earmarked picture. She looked deep into the young, boyish face - the wide eyes. And then the tears came.

She couldn't stop herself. They kept falling and falling, and she never thought they'd stop. She heard footsteps going past her, felt the curious eyes. But she didn't care. All of her hopes had come crashing down on top of her, and she couldn't handle the weight of them anymore. She was so far from everything she'd ever known - and so alone, so very, very alone. Her parents were gone. Her brother was gone. Her money was gone. And she was lost in a strange world where she only had her tears.

When she finally had the strength to glance away from the face in the photograph, she saw him. She didn't know how long he'd be standing there, or if he was even real.

He looked like a ghost in the pallid lamplight, and a terrifying one at that. He was dressed in the night, and Hattie didn't know what to do.

He walked over to her, and held out his hand. She tried to gain control of her sobs, but it was all she could do to just heave little gasps. She didn't know why, but she held out the photograph.

The man in black took it curiously and held it up to the light. She saw something like surprise pass over his face, and he handed the picture back to her.

"This man is alive," he said. Hattie's brow furrowed at the picture in her hand. When she looked to ask how he knew that, the man was gone.

Hattie took a deep breath and stared at the picture a second longer before slipping it carefully back into her pocket. She didn't know what that man was, or where he had come from - or why he was even in this part of town. She wasn't even convinced that he was a real person ... he might have just been a figment of her own anxious mind. But his words quieted everything within her, and filled her heart with hope again.

_This man is alive._


	2. Name Dropping

**Name-Dropping**

_Two Years Later_

At this time of the morning, the sun was still too low to burn. Hattie sat on the back stoop of the bistro's kitchen, the newspaper spread on her lap and an apple in her hand. She never really read the newspaper. She found the whole thing obnoxiously dull, and when she did decide to read a few lines, she usually found them depressing. This was just the only time of day that was hers - in the early morning before the bistro nagged her to start serving coffee and tea to lazy tourists, and it wasn't until long after she'd finished cleaning rooms at the fort (after which she almost always cleaned herself up and went for a dance or a drink with a handsome someobody or another, of course) that she collapsed in her bed. Hattie didn't like to be alone most of the time, and working was a supreme bore, but she lived for the nights when she felt beautiful and important again, and for the mornings when she could sit quietly by herself. The newspaper was just her shield against being dis -

"Hattie?"

The voice made her jump. Surely it was that time _already - _

She turned to look over her shoulder, and met the wide, dark eyes of the bistro cook's son, Jamir. The boy was almost sixteen and gawky as a baby bird, with a nose just a little too big for his face, but Hattie thought he was as sweet as they come and positively adorable in his awkwardness. When she smiled at him, his eyes fell quickly to his toes, a fighting back a silly little smile.

"Why, Jamir!" she said. "Don't you tell me it's time to work already."

He cleared his throat and shifted his weight. His voice cracked a little when he told her, "No ..."

"Well thank goodness," Hattie said in a sugary tone. She patted a spot on the stoop by her side. "You come sit down by me, honey. Have some of my apple."

Jamir glanced back at the door to the kitchen thoughtfully, and shook his head. His mother had beat him the last time he sat with her on the stoop. For some reason, the woman was convinced Hattie was trying to steal away her son's Muslim virtue. As if Hattie had any interest in a young boy ...

Hattie gave him a little pout, and he laughed nervously. He shifted his weight from side to side and wouldn't quite look at her. The strange, serious look on his face was piquing her interest. And Hattie didn't like being kept in suspense.

"Jamir, what's the matter?"

He startled, and managed to glance into her eyes before his gaze quickly retreated to his feet.

"Um ... Hattie ... you know how you say ... if I ever hear of ... or see a man called O'Connell ... to tell you?"

Even though Hattie smiled brightly at him, her heart stopped inside her chest. Her throat was too tight to speak for a moment. When she finally caught her breath, she managed to whisper:

"What did you hear?"

The boy crossed his arms over his chest. He chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully. Hattie's impatience was thumping hard in her veins. She stood up from the stoop and laid a hand on his arm. His nervous eyes met hers again.

"Please tell me. Are you having trouble finding the English word?"

He shook his head and jerked away from her.

"Then what is it, Jamir?"

He glared down at his feet and mumbled, "A man to be hanged today."

Hattie frowned in confusion. "What?"

He still wouldn't look at her. "A man called O'Connell is to be hanged. Today."

Hattie shook her head. "It can't be him, Jamir. I've told you all about my brother. He's not the kind of man anybody would want to hang - "

"He is called O'Connell," Jamir said firmly.

"Well he _isn't_ my brother."

Jamir opened his mouth to say something else, but quickly closed it. He nodded slowly and turned to go back inside without another word. After the door closed behind him, Hattie scoffed.

Sure, she had told the boy to tell her if he ever heard of or saw a man named Rick O'Connell. But he had to have some discernment. A man being hanged? There was no way that could be Rick. She'd told Jamir all about Rick and how he'd left home when he was twelve because he wanted adventure. She told him about how Rick joined the French Foreign Legion and went treasure hunting. He was daring, of course - but a criminal? Jamir had to have it wrong.

Suddenly, Hattie's gut sank to her feet. _Oh, dear Lord,_ she thought, _what if the police had it all wrong, and Rick is about to be hanged?_

Hattie didn't let the thought sink in any deeper. She didn't know how she was going to do it, but if this O'Connell was Rick - she was going to stop that hanging. She tossed her apple on the ground, and started running.

* * *

She was completely out of breath by the time she reached the gates of Cairo prison. She could feel the dust from the streets on her skin, and she knew her hair was all out of place. This wasn't exactly the way she'd like to be seeing her brother for the first time in fourteen years, but if he was really about to be _hanged_ - well, she figured any familiar face would do.

Hattie told the man at the gate that she wanted to see Mr. O'Connell, and he sent someone inside to go find the warden. Ten minutes later, a fat, greasy little man greeted her with an unsightly smile. She smiled back, and kept smiling even when his eyes raked down her body and back up again.

"Hello there," she said, getting him to look her in the eye. "My name is Hattie O'Connell. I'd like to see Mr. O'Connell, if you don't mind."

"You are his wife?"

She shook her head and gave him a little wink. "Oh, of course not. I'm his sister."

He gave her a yellow smile, and rose an eyebrow. "You come to the prison alone?"

Hattie's insides tensed, but her face was bright as ever. "Well I don't know what could possibly happen with you by my side."

He had a terrible, wheezing laugh - but he was charmed enough to let her in. She kept in line with his jaunty little swagger, and tried to keep her distracted glancing about discrete. He led her to a cell on the other end of the prison yard, past some leery looking characters and awful stenches. Hattie tried to keep a clear head when he stopped in front of an empty cell and banged loudly on the bars. Hattie jumped when a door in the back of the cell crashed open and a large, vicious-looking man stumbled forward. He fought off the bludgeoning of two guards' clubs before falling to his knees right in front of the bars.

Hattie took a step back, turning her terrified eyes to the warden. "I don't think ..."

"What's this about?"

The sharp voice made her flinch. Her wide eyes flashed back to the cell, and collided head on with a pair of endless, blue-green eyes. She gasped.

"Rick?" she breathed, rushing up to the bars.

The dirty, unshaven face frowned up at her. "Who the hell are you?"

Hattie's face clouded with confusion. "Rick, don't you remember? It's me, Hattie."

His eyes stayed cold, but she couldn't look away from him. She knew those eyes. And underneath the hair and the grime, she knew that face. His gaze drifted over her face, and when they finally came back to her eyes, his expression had changed. His mouth was a little slack, and his eyes were glazed. He leaned forward and shook his head.

"Hattie?" He stared at her in silence a moment longer. "What are you doing here?"

She blinked back the hot tears waiting to fall and smiled at him. Reaching between the bars, she took his rough hand in hers. "I came to find you."

His adam's apple jerked. "Hattie ..."

"I - I used all the money Ma and Dad left me. I went everywhere - to France, to - to Algeria and Libya ... and I've been here for two years hoping, just hoping ..."

Rick reached a hand up and rubbed his face. His knuckles were large and bruised. "Hattie ... they're gonna hang me in a couple hours."

Hattie shook her head quickly. "No. They can't. This is all some kind of misunderstanding. We'll sort it out - "

_"Hattie."_ The way he said her name reminded her of their father. "It's not a mistake. And even if it was - " He shot a dark glance at the warden. "You can't reason with these people."

She swallowed hard, and tried to quiet her shaking hands. Slowly, she unthreaded her fingers from his and turned a dazzling smile to the warden. The glare on his face brightened to an ugly grin when he caught her eye.

"Made your peace?"

"Oh," Hattie forced a little laugh. She strained her voice down to a musical tone. "Warden, you can't be serious! After all this time I've been searching for my brother, you can't really tell me you're about to hang the man."

The warden was unmoved. "At nine o'clock today."

"Oh, but Warden, my brother's as innocent as they come!"

"Ha!" he threw back. "Please."

"Well he couldn't have done anything to deserve a hanging. He wouldn't hurt a fly! Now surely there's some place you and I could sit down and talk this out."

The warden started to shake his head, but Hattie took his arm and gave him another little wink. "Come on, Warden. Won't you have a little pity for a reunited family? He's all I've got left in this world, you know."

He took a breath and shrugged. Shooting a nasty look at Rick, he offered Hattie the crook of his arm, and she took it blythely. Rick growled out a protest, but Hattie gave him a cool look out of the corner of her eye. She heard the guards dragging him away by force as she stepped quietly alongside the warden and into the prison. Her body went stiff as they stepped inside the murky, suffocating building. Flies buzzed around skittering eletric lights, hanging tackily from the ceiling. She glanced over her shoulder at the light of day behind her, but only once. In the dim light, the warden couldn't tell that the calm smiles she was giving him were forced.

He let her into a room that barely resembled an office, and gestured at one of the two mismatched chairs in the room. He took the other, leaning back and kicking up his feet on top of the warped desk between them.

"Well," Hattie cleared her throat. "I don't mean to ... assume anything about your honor, Warden. But what would it take for you to let my brother walk out of here?"

A smirk crawled up the sides of his face. He chuckled low in his throat, and shook a chiding finger at her. Hattie giggled a little and recrossed her legs.

"For your brother, Miss O'Connell? Five hundred dollars."

Hattie's throat tightened, but she swallowed hard and disregarded the hopeless feeling that wanted to take her over. There was still hope. There was always hope if you looked innocent enough.

"Warden!" she said in a mocked scolding tone. She flashed another smile and waved her hand as if to shoo his words away. "Now that's just downright cruel! Five hundred dollars? You're too flattering if you think I look like the kind of girl who carries around five hundred dollars! I can tell you're more reasonable than that. Can't we compromise that down, just a little?"

The warden pursed his lips thoughtfully, threading his fingers together. "What did you have in mind?"

"Oh ... I don't know ..."

Hattie casually reached a finger under her collar and caught a little gold chain. She pretended to fiddle with it mindlessly, and didn't even seem to notice the pendant slip out and catch the pallid light of the room. She glanced at the warden, but he seemed far from impressed.

"Listen," she said, holding the pendant towards him. "This was my mother's. It's a ruby, you see? And it's set in gold, of course. It's not worth five hundred dollars, but it's a worth around three hundred ..."

The warden shrugged. "Alright."

He held out his hand, and Hattie unclasped it from around her neck and dropped it in his palm. She gave him a sweet smile, and was just about ready to get up, when -

"What else?"

Hattie tilted her head to the side. "Why, whatever do you mean, Warden?"

He rose his eyebrows. "What else? The necklace is three hundred. What else?"

She forced a naive little laugh. "Well I don't have anything else ..."

He snickered, eyeing her legs. "Of course you do."

Hattie swallowed hard. She gave him another little smile. "I don't have any idea what you're talking about, Warden. I'm just trying to help my brother - "

"You know exactly what I'm talking about." His tone and eyes were too hard to be softened with a pretty smile. Hattie sat up a little.

"Alright," she breathed. She nodded slowly. "Alright. But you can't hardly expect me to do anything here."

He frowned in confusion. "Why not?"

She gritted her teeth, but very quickly laughed the motion off. "Oh, Warden, don't be silly! In _here?_ Why, it's not comfortable at all - and with the smell and the heat?"

The warden watched her suspiciously, but didn't protest. "Where would you suggest?"

Hattie held back her sigh of relief. "Why, my apartment, of course!"

"Your apartment?"

She laughed. "Well I can't imagine anywhere I'd be more comfortable!"

The warden shrugged. "Alright. When?"

Hattie sighed nonchalantly. "Oh, any time ... Why not tonight?"

A heavy, thoughtful frown contorted his features. Hattie held her breath.

"Tonight, then."

"Wonderful!" she cooed. "And you'll let my brother out now?"

The warden shook his head. Hattie gave him a little pout.

"Oh, but Warden, I thought - "

"Tomorrow," he said definitively.

Hattie's mind raced. She gave him a benign little smirk and leaned forward. "Now I would never mean to be pushy, but that's just not workable for me at all. Now let's say ..." She reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a key. "Let's say I give you a key to my apartment. I've got another tucked away in the doorframe I always keep to let me in if I lose this one, but let's just say I give you this."

She put the key on the table and slipped it toward his fingers.

"Now, Warden, if you'd just do me this one itty bitty little favor and let my brother out now, you can have this key and come by to visit me any time you'd like. How does that sound?"

The warden stared at the key for a moment before finally nodding. When he took the key and slipped it away in his pocket, Hattie gave him the first genuine smile since she'd stepped inside this dreadful place.

"Your address, Miss O'Connell?"

* * *

Rick rubbed the raw marks around his wrists as they stepped out of the prison.

"Well, I don't know what you did, but thanks."

Hattie smiled. "Don't worry about it. Jamir will have to get me another copy of the bistro key, but it would hardly be the first time." She slipped her arm through his and leaned against his shoulder. "But let's not trouble ourselves with that any longer. What can I do for you? My apartment has an absolutely awful communal bathroom, but I suppose any shower's better than none."

He laughed and started to say something, but a voice behind them made him stop very suddenly.

"Hey, there he is!"


	3. Let's Make a Deal

**Let's Make a Deal**

Hattie and Rick nervously turned around. She let out a little sigh of relief to see the couple coming towards them weren't prison guards or unsightly characters. They looked like squeaky-clean tourist types to Hattie, and even though she was glad they were in no way threatening, she had to wonder what was bringing them straight toward her brother.

"Hello!" the man said, an exaggerated grin on his face. The woman at his side pulled back a little when she got a closer look at Rick, and Hattie saw her whisper something to the man that he waved off.

"Can I help you?" Rick demanded. Hattie glanced up at him to see he was in no mood for these people - whoever they were.

"Why, yes, I think so." Even though his voice was cheery, Hattie could easily tell that his smile was strained. "Evy?"

He pulled the woman in front of him like a shield and gave her a little nudge toward Rick. She opened her mouth to speak, but Hattie interrupted her:

"I hate to be rude, but who are you?"

The woman seemed relieved to have her attention drawn away from Rick's scowl. She held out her hand to Hattie. "I'm Evelyn Carnahan, and this is my brother Jonathan. We're here because, um, my brother seems to have ... acquired something that belongs to you." She glanced at Rick cautiously.

His expression hadn't changed, but his gaze shifted to Jonathan thoughtfully. Suddenly, his eyes got very wide, and he took a foreboding step right in Jonathan's direction.

"You!"

"Who?" Jonathan sputtered nervously. "You mean me?"

Hattie glanced quickly from the prison gates to the cowering man to her brother's large, angry fists. She took a smooth step between them and met Evelyn's eyes again.

"Oh, well that's awfully kind of you to come all this way just to return my brother's ... item. Isn't that awfully sweet, Rick?"

He gave her a look and returned his glare back to Jonathan. _"Awfully."_

Hattie strained a little smile and held out her hand. "So if you'll just hand it to me, we'll be more than happy to let the two of you go on with your day."

But Evelyn was looking past Hattie and directly into Rick's eyes. "Actually, that's not why we came at all."

Rick's eyebrows rose. "Yeah?"

She nodded. "Yes. In fact, we'd like to discuss this, um, item with you." She glanced around nervously. "But perhaps we could go some place a little more quiet?"

Rick let out a sigh. "Look, lady. I've been stuck in that prison for the last week and a half. I haven't had a shower or a decent meal in God-knows-when. If you wanna keep that stupid little box - it's all yours. Okay?"

Evelyn's eyes fluttered, but she stood toe-to-toe with him, and met his gaze directly. "It's actually not the box_ itself _- "

Rick sighed. "I was afraid of that."

Her pretty eyes brightened. "Then you know - where it came from?"

Rick nodded slowly. "Yeah. I know all about that." Evelyn gave him a sparkling smile and opened her mouth to say more, but Rick just held up his hands and shook his head. "But I don't want anything to do with it."

"Please," Evelyn pressed, "hear me out. If you have any information you can give to us at all, we'd very much appreciate it."

Rick stared stubbornly away. But Evelyn wasn't done:

"We'll buy you lunch."

* * *

"You know, I didn't think there'd be time enough to clean you up, but you don't look half bad."

Rick let out a loud sigh, folding his arms over his chest. They had agreed to meet the Carnahans at a local restaurant in the tourist section of town, and Rick had just had enough time to shower and find clean clothes at his apartment. Hattie had lent him a ribbon to tie back his wild hair, and it was all the man could do not to constantly be pulling at it. The sun was heavy and bright in the sky, so they waited just inside the cafe. Rick glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed.

"Now I haven't asked yet because I assumed you just wanted to get ready," Hattie began, "but what is this all about?"

Rick looked at her. "Well - "

But the door swung open and the Carnahans waltzed in, giddy as ever. Evelyn apologized for their lateness and shot Jonathan a look for good measure. They were seated at a booth far in the back, away from most of the lunch crowd. Hattie was suddenly reminded of the bistro when the waiter came around to ask for their drink orders. Goodness, with all the excitement at the prison this morning, she'd completely forgotten ... Jamir's mother was going to kill her. _Well, _she thought, _it's too late now, anyway._ She may as well get to the bottom of these British siblings and whatever it was they wanted.

Evelyn waited until their drinks had arrived and their food orders were placed before leaning forward and whispering.

"Now. Mr. ... um. I'm sorry. What was it, again?"

"O'Connell," Jonathan put in for her. "His name's O'Connell."

"Rick," he corrected.

"And Hattie," she put in. Evelyn nodded politely and turned her attention back to Rick.

"Can you tell us what all you know about the box, Mr. O'Connell?"

Rick sighed, and took a sip from his drink. "Look, all I know about the box is it's from Hamunaptra - "

"Hamunaptra?" Hattie said. "Is that what this is all about?"

Jonathan shushed them and glanced around nervously.

Evelyn ran her tongue over her lips. "How do you know it's from Hamunaptra?"

Rick sighed. "Because that's where I was when I found it."

Evelyn's dazzling smile was focused right on him. "You mean you've been to Hamunaptra? You've been there yourself, truly?"

Rick met her excitement with a sarcastic glare. "Yeah. I've been there."

"Do you think ..." Evelyn lowered her voice again. "Do you think you could find your way there again, if we asked you to take us?"

Rick shrugged and took another drink of his water. He looked between the two Carnahans, on the edge of their seats across the table. "Sure, I could. But I'm not going back there."

"But - "

The waiter arrived with their food, and Evelyn sat perfectly still and silent as each plate was served. She waited until he had disappeared around the corner to speak again.

"But Mr. O'Connell, a discovery of this magnitude simply can't be ignored - "

Rick gave her a sarcastic smile and brought a forkful of food to his mouth. "Here I am. Ignoring it."

"But - "

"Listen, lady," Rick said. "My sister and I really appreciate you guys taking us out for dinner, but I'm not going back out there. There's something wrong with that place."

"Well it _is_ the City of the Dead," Jonathan put in. Rick shot him a look.

Hattie sighed, glancing between her brother's stubborn expression and the disappointed looks on the Carnahans' faces.

"You know, Rick isn't the only person in this city who knows how to find Hamunaptra ..."

Jonathan scoffed. "Sure. Con artists."

Hattie met his irritable gaze with a pretty smile. "Oh, no. I don't mean con artists. I mean there's another man who's been there. Maybe he'd be willing to take you."

Rick gave her a look. "Hattie - "

"It was a man from your garrison, Rick," she said pointedly. "He was a good friend of yours. Of course he thought that you were dead, but he was at Hamunaptra with you. He takes people out there all the time. The tourists who go to the bistro talk about hiring him."

Rick stared at her in shock, a strange look in his eyes. She could feel Evelyn and Jonathan's expectant gazes on her face. Rick finally managed to whisper, "Someone from my garrison? But they all died ..."

Hattie shrugged. "Not this one. Now what was his name? I only spoke with him that one time, and that was probably two years ago ... maybe more ..."

"If you can think of anything," Jonathan pleaded. "Anything we can go off of - "

Hattie's face creased with thought. What was that mousy little man's name ...?

"Something French. Ga ... Oh. It was Gabor!"

A bright, triumphant smile spread across her face. She caught Jonathan's happy expression and gave him a little wink.

Rick let out a loud sigh. "His name's Beni Gabor. And he's Hungarian."

"Well perfect!" Jonathan said. "We'll just seek the chap out and leave the two of you to your lives."

Rick shook his head. "You can't hire a guy like Beni to take you to Hamunaptra."

"Why not?" Jonathan asked, folding his arms over his chest. "He knows the way as well as you do, perhaps better, even - "

"You'll never come back, " Rick said darkly. He gave Hattie the edge of his glance. "What are you thinking, telling these people about Beni?"

Hattie frowned. "Well I don't know. You don't want to take them out there, so I figured they may as well find someone who will ..."

"You can't trust Beni."

Evelyn looked between the O'Connells thoughtfully. Her cautious eyes came to rest on Rick's. "Surely there's some kind of an agreement we can come to. Isn't there any price you'd be willing to take us out there for?"

Rick just stared back at her. She rose an eyebrow.

"Otherwise, I suppose we'll just be forced to find this Beni fellow and work something out with him."

Rick shook his head. "Maybe you didn't hear me right the first time, but I'm _not _going back there. And if you're smart, you won't go, either. I told you you can't trust Beni, so if you get ditched in the middle of the desert with no food or water, that'll be your own fault."

Evelyn looked down and pretended to pick at her food. Jonathan took a gulp from his drink. Hattie was certain Evelyn had finally given up, but when her fist tightened around her fork and she looked up again, her eyes were more determined than ever.

"Look, Mr. O'Connell. This is your last chance. Are you certain there's nothing at all we could do for you?"

Rick glared back at her steadily. "No."

Evelyn took a breath, and nodded.

"Very well," she said quietly. "Jonathan?"

He looked at her in confusion, but she was already nudging him out of the booth.

"But I haven't even finished my fish yet - "

She gave him a hard glare, and he picked up the plate and got out of the booth. Evelyn stared down at Rick steadily as she opened her wallet and threw a few bills on the table.

"Good day, Mr. O'Connell."

With that, she strode out of the restaurant, Jonathan dogging at her heels with the plate of food still in his hands.

Hattie took a deep breath, and looked at her brother. When he met her eyes, she whispered. "What about - what if they bought us tickets back to America?"

He frowned in confusion. "What?"

"Rick, we don't have any money. I probably lost my job today - and what are you supposed to do, just out of jail? They could buy us tickets to go back home, and we could be done with this place."

Rick started to shake his head, but Hattie put a hand on his arm.

"What if this is our only chance?"

Rick snorted. "Look, Hattie - that chance is gone now."

* * *

_Curious? Wondering where things could possibly be headed? I told you Hattie was about to switch things up. :) But don't worry, there's still an Ardeth romance to be had. I love reviews!_


	4. Another Door Opens

_**Author's Note. **I've had this story on hiatus forever because, frankly, I had no idea what to do with it after the last chapter. Then, out of nowhere, an idea for the next chapter hit me, and I figured I might as well go for it. This story still gets a lot of attention even though it hasn't been updated in ages, so I thought it might be worth getting active again._

_I apologize for the short-ness of this chapter. I'm trying to get back into it, which is always kind of bumpy._

* * *

**Another Door Opens**

"Pardon me."

The strange, accented voice made Hattie jump. She turned around in her seat to catch the catlike eyes of the coolly beautiful woman seated behind them. When she'd arrived, Hattie couldn't have known. When they were escorted to this table, it appeared vacant. Hattie glanced between the woman and her brother, watching the stranger with curious caution.

"Can I help you?" he managed in his best attempt at gruff ease. Hattie frowned, looking between the two of them again. The woman _was_ beautiful...a striking, cold kind of beautiful that apparently threw Rick more than a little off-balance.

The woman slipped out of her seat and over to their table. She glanced down at the seat across from them.

"May I?"

Rick cleared his throat and nodded. She sat down and folded her hands on the table.

"I couldn't help but overhear your conversation," she said in a voice than ran over Hattie's ears like water. Rick leaned back stiffly in his seat.

"Oh yeah?"

She stared into his eyes for a brief moment before continuing. "I would be very interested in employing your services, Mr. ...?"

"O'Connell."

A thin smile tipped her lips. "Mr. O'Connell. And I would be more than happy to send you back to America a wealthy man." She flitted a glance at Hattie. "Your wife, too, of course."

Hattie let out a little, nervous laugh. "I'm not his - "

"How wealthy?" Rick's voice cut in, taking on a strange tone that Hattie wouldn't have believed he had. She turned and looked at him, but he was preoccupied with this mysterious, dark woman and her mysterious, dark smile.

She tapped her fingers on the table a moment, glancing briefly at Hattie before returning her gaze to Rick.

"Ten thousand."

Hattie startled, her mouth dropping in awe. "Ten - ten thousand _dollars?"_

The woman raised an eyebrow and nodded. Hattie looked at Rick again. He sat up a little in his seat, his arms crossed over his chest and his hands flexing in fists. He looked shocked, but the surprise was slowly wearing into suspicion.

"Ten thousand dollars," he repeated quietly. He raised his eyebrows and scratched the back of his neck. "Hard to argue with a sum like that."

The woman almost smiled. "Yes, I thought so, too."

Rick chuckled low in his throat. He eyed the woman thoughtfully; it seemed to Hattie as if he was considering her high cheekbones and dark gold skin and deep neckline as if they'd all come together to test his resolve against Hamunaptra. The woman didn't mind (or even seem to notice) Rick's scrutiny, but Hattie found herself growing more and more uncomfortable in the silent minutes that passed. She let out a sigh just to fill the quiet space between them, but her brother and the stranger were unmoved. They seemed to have forgotten about her altogether.

"So..." she started to say.

"You know most people who want to find Hamunaptra don't have that kind of money," Rick said finally. Hattie took a breath and shot him a look. She was about fed up with everyone dismissing her like she wasn't even sitting there.

"I am not most people," the woman returned smoothly.

Rick raised his eyebrows. "So what do you want to go there for? It can't be the treasure."

The shadow of a smile fell across her face for barely a moment. She let his question drop to the floor, unanswered. "Do we have a deal, Mr. O'Connell?"

Rick met her eyes evenly for a moment, and then shrugged. "I'd be a real idiot to pass up ten thousand dollars, wouldn't I?"

She inclined her head in a slight nod. Hattie leaned forward.

"So when do we get this money?"

The woman met her eyes in serious consideration for the first time since she'd gotten their attention. Her shoulders rose and fell in an easy shrug.

"I can write you a check."

Rick scoffed. "I don't have a banking account."

She nodded. "I understand. I'll get it for you in cash, then, when we return to Cairo."

Hattie's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why not now?"

The woman leveled her gaze at Hattie in condescension. "Because I'm not enough of a fool to carry that much money around with me in cash."

Hattie's hands tightened into fists. She was frustrated from being ignored and dismissed all day, and she certainly wasn't in the mood for this woman's smug expression. She crossed her arms over her chest.

"Then how do we know you even have it at all?"

The woman gave her a slow smile as she got up out of her seat. She turned her gaze to Rick and stretched out her hand, and he gave it a shake.

"My name is Meela Nais," she said. "And I am a woman of means."


	5. Murphy's Law

_**Author's Note. **To make up for last chapter, here's a much longer installment! Yay! _

_This chapter introduces Campbell Wily, who I wasn't sure about writing, but now she's here, and I like her. She's kind of a caricature of what the "Rick's sister" character usually entails. The loudmouthed, gun-slinging, redheaded depiction always seems so... out there for the 1920's, but just for kicks I started trying to come up with a way to rationalize such a character historically. And Campbell is who showed up. _

* * *

**Murphy's Law**

Hattie's feet and mind were numb from the endless flood of activity that had consumed her the past two days. She knew she was fired for sure from the restaurant and so she didn't bother to go back, and she decided not to think about it again as she boarded the barge Rick said would take them three days down the Nile, and halfway through their journey. Meela insisted that they leave as soon as possible; she frowned distastefully at their plucky little vessel, but said nothing. She'd been gracious enough to buy them each their own rooms, and after refusing Rick's help with the luggage ("I will have one of my men take care of it," she'd said), she slipped behind her door and didn't venture out again.

Meela had one stoic, dark-skinned man named Lock-Nah who followed her everywhere. Hattie assumed he was a servant, but he followed her into her room and didn't appear to have any intentions of leaving. When the door closed behind them, followed by the faint click of a lock, Rick let out a sigh and said, "Not too talkative, are they?" And Hattie had given him a little half-hearted laugh in the hopes that he wouldn't be able to tell how uneasy the two of them made her. Rick and Hattie stood awkwardly in the hallway a brief moment before Rick made some remark about getting settled in his room, and Hattie reluctantly retreated to hers.

Something didn't feel right to her. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she had a bad feeling about Ms. Nais. If she was so wealthy, what did she want to go to Hamunaptra for? The only reason anyone went hunting for Hamunaptra was the gold. Well, she supposed there were also the dusty old professors who went out searching for artifacts and other boring things like that, but Meela was a far cry from those spectacled Brits and Germans in their out-dated suits...

Hattie sighed, feeling a faint pounding against her temple. This was going to drive her nuts if she spent too long thinking about it, and anyway, Meela _was_ giving them ten thousand dollars. She supposed Rick could handle the likes of them.

Maybe she should have stayed back in Cairo like her brother had wanted. But she simply couldn't bear the thought of hanging around there, waiting tables and washing dishes when she knew Rick was on an adventure in the desert. She took a deep breath, and a thrill ran down her spine and made her heart beat a little faster. An adventure, and with her brave older brother, too. She'd travelled half the world to find him, and now they were together. Hamunaptra was a little slice of his past - a missing piece of those empty years they'd been apart, and she was going to get to see it. She was going to get a glimpse of the life he'd lived after he left her and their parents behind.

Hattie's bright blue eyes moved about the room for only a moment before she determined that she simply couldn't stay put in this little cabin by herself. She really couldn't bear to be alone, and certainly couldn't now - on this barge full of all kinds of interesting people. With a smile, she slipped out of her room, leaving her purse behind because she was certain she'd be able to talk at least one gentleman into buying her a drink.

The sun was bright on the deck but lowering in the sky; in a few hours, it would be night and then this place would really come alive. At least it ought to, or Hattie would be dreadfully disappointed.

She spotted the bar and sidled up next to a cream-colored suit. When she caught a glimpse of the face of the man in it, she smiled.

"Mr. Carnahan! Remember me?"

He turned and met her gaze in surprise before flashing her a grin. "Why, of course, love. What brings you aboard this fine vessel on this...blistering, bloody hot day?"

Jonathan frowned and swatted at a gnat with one hand as he reached for his handkerchief with the other. He wiped the sweat off of his forehead and took a sip of his scotch.

"I came up for a drink," Hattie said not-so-subtlely, eyeing his glass.

"Oh, yes, darling, allow me to accomodate you."

A moment later, Hattie was sipping on a Mary Pickford, and Jonathan was resuming the conversation.

"You know, what I meant to say is, where is it you're heading? On the boat?"

Hattie was suddenly reminded of their conversation the other day, and the rather rude way Rick had refused their offer. It seemed awfully embarrassing to tell Jonathan that they were taking someone else to Hamunaptra. She wasn't sure what to tell him, so she simply shrugged nonchalantly and said:

"Oh, you know...I'm just taking a little trip down the river is all. It's nice to do every now and then."

Jonathan nodded in agreement, but his gaze was vaguely suspicious. He started to ask where she'd be docking at, but Hattie quickly interrupted him.

"And what about you, Mr. Carnahan?"

His face brightened. "Well, as it turns out, Evy and I are going to Hamunaptra after all!"

"My!" Hattie gave him a glittering smile and playful pat on the leg. "How wonderful! Did you find that little Hungarian fellow, then?"

Jonathan's mouth jerked uneasily, and he started to say, "Not exactly - "

"Listen, honey, have you got vodka here?"

Hattie jumped at the sound of the molasses-sweet voice beside her, and she just barely caught a glimpse of the dismal look on Jonathan's face before turning to the woman beside her. She was a short little thing, maybe five feet tall, with a large bosom that made the rest of her features look slim and disproptionate. She had hair so red that Hattie would have guessed it was dyed, except that her eyebrows were the same color and her complexion was milky white. She met Hattie's gaze and gave her a smile, and Hattie couldn't help but think there was something not quite right about her astonishingly green eyes.

"Jonathan, sugar, won't you buy a lady a drink?"

He cleared his throat nervously, and started to sputter a few different sentences before finally fishing his wallet out of his jacket in defeat. The woman gave him a dazzling smile and lifted the glass to her lips. She immediately grimaced at the taste of the sharp, clear liquid, but forced it down and coughed.

"Ach, it's the Devil himself in a bottle," she said under her breath. She glanced up at Hattie and sighed. "But I'm afraid I just can't quit it. It's his drink, you know, and he'd go off into a rage every time I drank from his bottle, and I can't help myself. I like to imagine he goes right into a fit every time I have some, like voodoo. You know what I mean, voodoo?"

Hattie forced a polite smile. "I don't...really know what we're talking about..."

She glanced up at Jonathan helplessly, who barely managed to mouth the word "mad" before the woman turned her strange gaze to him.

"Like a needle in his backside," she said. "Like a needle_ right_ in his skinny little backside."

She smiled devilishly to herself, and the only thing Hattie could think to do was hold out her hand and introduce herself. The woman's pale hand was small as a child's but surprisingly strong, and the skin on her palms was rough. She gave Hattie's hand a hard shake and said:

"I'm Campbell Wily, and_ yes_, that's my first name, Campbell, and _yes,_ Wily as in...you know, tricksy." She gave Hattie a wink and took another dramatic sip from her glass. "Folks think it's awful strange - Yankees like yourself, I mean - to have Campbell as a first name. But in Georgia it's common as peaches. Campbell was my mama's maiden name, see, and they was going to give it to a son, 'cept they never did have one."

Hattie nodded politely, glancing over at Jonathan for help. He shrugged and tried desperately to mouth something to her that she couldn't read before Campbell was talking again.

"So what part 'a God's country are you from, honey? I know you ain't a Southern belle like me."

Hattie told her she was from Chicago and started to come up with an excuse to leave, but she was interrupted by more voices - these ones somehow louder (or at least as loud) as Campbell, and male. Hattie felt a little relieved at the sound of men; she could handle men just fine, but women...and particularly women like Campbell Wily, were a mystery to her. She never knew how to handle all that chatter. She was terribly good at chattering herself, but she hated listening to it. That's what she liked about men. They never chattered.

The three men who arrived at the bar were also clearly Americans, and the sound of their distinctive accent made Jonathan groan. Hattie glanced at his face pityingly, and jerked her head in the direction of an empty table. Jonathan's face brightened, and he bobbled his head in a nod. Hattie watched him saunter over to the table, and she was just beginning to slip by when a hand caught her by the elbow and made her spill half her drink. She whirled around to shoot a glare at whomever had grabbed her, but her anger lost its edge when she met a pair of steady, amused blue eyes.

"You made me spill my drink," she said irritably, though her mouth twisted with a smile.

He was handsome, even though she thought he looked a little silly in his cowboy get-up.

"I just wanted to buy you one," he said in an easy drawl. "And that glass was too full to wait on."

Hattie bit her lip and glanced back at Jonathan, sitting alone at the table, before looking back to her new acquaintance.

"Alright," she said slowly.

She followed him up to the bar, where he leaned easily and ordered "whatever it was she had before."

"What's your name?"

"Hattie O'Connell," she said.

He smiled and shook her hand. "Well, Miss Hattie O'Connell, I'm Gabe Henderson. And if you're smart, you'll keep gettin' your drinks from me."

She couldn't help an amused little smirk. He was charming her, and she adored being charmed. "Oh? And why is that?"

"Because I'm about to be the richest fella this side 'a...well, anywhere."

Hattie was about to ask him what that meant, but her drink was ready, and Jonathan was still sitting by himself. She thanked Gabe Henderson for buying her cocktail and gave him a little wink before slipping away from the bar. She couldn't help but smile to herself at the thought of her new admirer, and how terribly jealous he must be, watching her leave his company to go sit with another man.

"Now I hope you don't take any offense to this personally," Jonathan said as she sat down, "but I can't think of anything more dreadful than having to spend the next three days aboard a boat with so many bloody Americans."

Hattie let out a little laugh and took a sip from her drink. "Speaking of Americans, how do you know that...Campbell Wily woman?"

Jonathan groaned. "Well, you see, after we had that conversation in the restaurant, Evy was determined to go to Hamunaptra. So I sought out that Beni Gabor fellow. Unfortunately, when I reached his...hovel...she was the only one there."

Hattie frowned thoughtfully. "Really? Is she his...wife or something?"

Jonathan held up his hands and shook his head. "I ask no questions. Of course, that doesn't keep her from talking my ear off..." He let out another groan and took a sip from his drink. "She said he was already taking a crew out to Hamunaptra, for quite the sum of money, but that he's taken her along on several of these ventures. And she claims she can get us out there without any help from him." He sighed, "Something about a mountain girl's sense of direction...or bloody coal mines...She's said so much I can't keep it all straight."

Hattie couldn't help but feel some pity for Jonathan. After all, he wouldn't be in this mess with Campbell if she'd thought to speak up earlier in their luncheon the other day; maybe she could have convinced Rick to change his mind about taking the Carnahans to Hamunaptra before it was too late. Granted, the Carnahans weren't giving them ten thousand dollars, but at least there was nothing mysterious and off-putting about them...

"Has she ever been out to Hamunaptra on her own before?" Hattie asked.

"I don't suspect - "

_"Hell and tarnation!"_

The loud exclamation made Hattie jump. A moment later, a gunshot ripped through the air, causing her to let out a little scream. Jonathan met her wild eyes with confusion, and he started to get up to see what the fuss was about. But he was nearly knocked on his feet but a flighty little fellow who scurried under their table. Hattie peered under the table to see who he was, and was met by a vaguely familiar set of buggy, desperate eyes.

"I am not here!" he whispered in a shrill, accented voice.

Hattie barely had time to sit up again before her gaze collided head-long into Campbell's wide, angry eyes.

"Is that him?"

Hattie blinked in confusion. "What?"

Suddenly, Campbell had a gun in her hand, the barrel levelled right between Hattie's eyes. Hattie glanced at Jonathan helplessly.

"Under the table," Campbell returned through her teeth. She pulled back the hammer, and Hattie felt a pair of skinny but determined arms wrapped tightly about her legs.

"Hey!"

Hattie breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of her brother's voice, even though Campbell's pistol was still only inches from her face. Campbell's gaze jerked away in confusion, staring up at Rick, who strode over and stood like a mammoth over her slight form. She glared up at him steadily, like a feisty little dog that didn't realize just how silly it looked.

"Get that gun the hell away from my sister," Rick said.

Campbell exaggerated an eye roll, though her arm dropped to her side. "Oh, hell, Yankee, I don't give a chicken's right eye about your sister! It's the wormy little son 'a bitch under the table!"

Rick seemed confused as he leaned down and took a look, but his expression was full of understanding when he straightened back up again.

"Yeah, have at it."

Campbell started to kneel down, gun still in hand, and it occurred to Hattie that she might very well intend to shoot the man while he was still clinging to her.

"Don't!" Hattie said, a little more desperately than she meant to. "I mean, can't you at least do it when he's not wrapped around my legs?"

Campbell and Rick looked at each other for a brief moment before Rick leaned over again, reached a hand under the table, and dragged the man out onto the deck. Hattie heard her stockings tear from the desperate grip he had on them, and she couldn't help glaring at him as he was pulled to his feet, all guilty smiles and sputtered apologies.

"Oh, so many good friends!" he managed in his grating, high-pitched voice. "Campbell, my dear, that glass eye is marvelous on you!"

Campbell frowned dangerously. "And you'll be payin' for it, then, like you promised."

He gulped and quickly turned his wide, desperate eyes to Rick. "O'Connell! You are alive!"

"Yeah, it's a shock to all of us," Rick retorted.

The man forced a nervous little laugh, his gaze drifting to Hattie now. His lips curled in a smirk, almost despite his anxiety, and the words seem to leave his mouth before he had a chance to change his mind about them:

"Nice garters, by the way."

Rick slapped his hand on the man's back, his fingers gripping into his shoulder, and pale-faced terror quickly replaced his sneer.

"O'Connell!" he whined.

"Beni," Rick said through his teeth. "This is my _sister_, Hattie. I believe you've met before."

Beni gulped and then stared at Hattie, recognition filling his eyes as he let out a dismal groan. He muttered something under his breath in a language no one around him seemed to understand. The mismatched group at the table fell into silence for an awkward moment before Campbell was raising her gun again.

"Well, I'm sure it's been awful nice for Beni here to be catching up, but I got me some business with him to tend to - "

"Oh, no you don't."

Hattie let out a groaning sigh. She glanced across the table and met Jonathan's uncomfortable gaze before reluctantly looking up to see who had joined them. She was beginning to feel like a character in a Shakespeare play - and she was wishing she'd made her _exeunt_ a little sooner.

Gabe Henderson stood behind one of his companions - a short, dark-haired man with a short-tempered glare. Next to him was another of his companions, who wore spectacles and seemed a little apprehensive of the whole situation.

"That fella is our ticket to Hamunaptra, and you ain't about to be blowin' him to smitherines just yet."

Hattie braced herself for the crazy woman's reaction, but Campbell only tilted her head to the side. When she spoke, her voice was smooth and sweet, and it made Hattie more nervous than her usual boisterousness. "Sir, do I detect a hint of Appa-latch-ya in your speech?"

Henderson's companion frowned in confusion a moment before a slow smile crept up his face. His whole demeanor changed, and he was starting to say that he was from east Tennessee. Hattie was wondering how her evening could get any stranger, and she glanced over at Jonathan helplessly. He motioned at her with his finger, and she leaned over the table so that he could whisper:

"I keep thinking to myself that this couldn't possibly get worse, and then something else happens. So I'm sorry for inviting Murphy."

Hattie's brow furrowed in confused amusement. "Murphy?"

"You know, love. Murphy. Murphy's Law? Whatever can go wrong, will go - "

His words were lost in the midst of a loud explosion on the other end of the ship. Gunshots rang overhead, and suddenly Hattie was being pushed or pulled somehow under the table. Jonathan ducked down beside her, his voice straining calm though his face was clearly marked by fear.

"And there I've gone and invited him again. Dreadfully sorry."

"Stay down!" Hattie heard her brother shout at her from above the table. Her whole body tensed, and she held her breath. She was grateful when Jonathan pulled her protectively against himself; grateful for his arms and for the illusion of safety.

Then Beni scurried under the table, pushing back against them desperately as his fearful gaze flitted everywhere at once.

"Damn it, Murphy, get your own table!" Jonathan said, casting an irritable glare in Beni's direction.

He looked between the two of them and scoffed. "Oh, was I interrupting something?"


	6. Taking Prisoners

**Taking Prisoners**

A loud, cracking boom errupted just above Hattie's head, and she let out a little scream, grabbing onto Jonathan's sleeve instinctively. She met his confused gaze before glancing over to look into Beni's fearful grayish-blue eyes.

"What was that?" she asked above the noise.

Beni smirked grimly. "A gun. A very big gun."

Despite the fear that charged through her veins and made her blood thud like a hammer in her ears, Hattie twisted out of Jonathan's arms and leaned just a little ways out from under the table. She caught just the beginning of Jonathan's warning protest before a big, dark hand took hold of her arm and yanked her out into the chaos.

She was dragged to her feet and her back collided with something heavy and warm and heaving. She was stiffly pinned against it by a thick, dark arm, and it took her a moment of blind confusion to realize that someone had just taken her up as a human shield. Hattie blinked and suddenly there was the attacker before her, a tall figure all in black, glistening sword raised, and only a set of flashing dark eyes peering from his swathed face. She was too terrified to scream.

The figure spat a word under his breath which made Hattie's captor tense with anger. After a moment, the attacker lowered his sword and shouted something that made the deck suddenly very quiet. He stared angrily past Hattie, at the man holding her, and pulled the cloth from his face. Hattie's breath hitched in her throat.

She supposed she had imagined him a goblin of a man, with an inhuman face and gnashing teeth hidden behind the black cloth. Who else would attack an innocent barge full of tourists and civilians? That was probably a silly thing to expect, but she couldn't help but be surprised at the handsome face of her would-be attacker; at his high cheekbones and strong nose and piercing, endlessly black eyes. Her eyes traced over the strange symbols marking his face for only a second before he startled her by saying in English:

"I have called them off, Lock-Nah. You can release the girl."

The arms that had trapped Hattie suddenly let go of her, and she stumbled to regain her balance. She turned and looked all around to see them surrounded by those strange, red-shrouded men that Meela had brought with her. She twisted her head this way in that, desperately searching for a familiar face. Somewhere in the darkness of the crowd, she caught sight of Rick, who looked both relieved and upset to see her in the midst of this.

"Ah. Ardeth Bay."

Meela's smooth, cool voice jerked Hattie's attention back to the scene she was accidentally a part of. The woman seemed to appear out of nowhere, stepping out from the crowd of her men as if each one knew just when to move out of her path. She found her place next to Lock-Nah, and Hattie tried to carefully inch away from them, but the crowd of gawkers was unmoved.

"What a pleasure," Meela purred, a cruel almost-smile on her lips. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked him over in something like amusement. Had she a tail, it probably would have been twitching. "Though I must admit, I was not expecting you so soon."

Ardeth straightened his shoulders, standing like a noble statue. "We were not here for you, actually."

Meela did smile now. "A happy coincidence, then."

A hand on Hattie's shoulder made her jump, and she glanced up to see her brother beside her now, having fought through the crowd in his usual, bullish way.

"What the hell is this about?" he demanded. "You know these guys?"

Meela's gaze barely flitted to Rick before returning to Ardeth.

"Mr. O'Connell, this is Ardeth Bay, the son of Ayman Bay, high chieftain of the twelve Med-Jai tribes, sacred guardians of Hamunaptra."

"Wait a minute," another loud voice interjected. Hattie looked up to see Gabe's friend, Daniels, pushing his way through the crowd. "You mean all this ruckus was about us goin' to Hamunaptra?"

Meela might have smiled. "Indeed, Mr. Daniels." The man looked confused, and Hattie could just barely hear him ask Gabe how she knew his name. She turned her attention away from Ardeth and addressed the fearful gaggle of tourists and treasure-seekers:

"These men might have made it very difficult for us in our endeavor to study Hamunaptra. Fortunately, we've just captured their leader."

Daniels grunted, crossing his arms over his chest. "So kill the bastard, then."

A murderous grin split Lock-Nah's face. "With pleasure."

But Meela raised her hand, and Lock-Nah took a step back, his smile faded to confused irritation.

"No, Mr. Daniels. I'm afraid that's not what we'll do."

Daniels' brow furrowed and his jaw tensed. Hattie could tell from the way he glanced at his friends that he wasn't the sort of man who was used to taking orders, especially not from a woman, and that he wasn't about to start taking them tonight:

"Oh? And why not, honey?"

Meela didn't even look at Daniels. She was gazing at Ardeth thoughtfully, and she took a few smooth steps closer to him, raising a hand to his cheek. He flinched under her touch but otherwise remained motionless.

"Because there are twelve tribes of Med-Jai, and if we kill the only heir to the caliphate, they will _all_ descend up us," she explained patiently. "However, Ayman will have no choice but to leave us to our business if we have something very dear to him in our possession." She gave Ardeth a little smirk and let her arm drop to her side.

Ardeth's dark gaze followed her, and he shook his head angrily. "Do you know what dark fate you condemn these people to?"

Meela raised an eyebrow. "Why don't you tell them, Ardeth? You have certainly won their sympathy by staging an attack on this vessel, and interrupting what was promising to be a lovely evening."

His jaw clenched. "This woman cannot be trusted!"

Meela held back a chuckle and made a motion with her hand that sent her men into action. Ardeth was immediately bound and dragged across the deck.

"Turn back now before it is too late!" he shouted just before being shoved below deck.

Hattie took a breath and glanced up at Rick. They shared a look before he turned his attention to Meela and strode forward.

"So we're taking prisoners now?"

She sighed. "I would prefer it if you focused on the task I hired you to do, and leave me to my business."

Rick was taken aback, and didn't have a chance to manage a retort before she turned and followed her men below deck.

A strange feeling was twisting in Hattie's stomach, and she didn't know what to think of it. She knew she ought to be grateful for Meela's intervention; certainly the barge would have burned and sank if not for her. But there was something troubling about Ardeth's words...something troubling, and an earnestness in his eyes that Hattie couldn't forget. Meela may have saved them from the Med-Jai attack, which seemed to be enough for most of the passengers, who just looked relieved to still be alive, but her dark eyes were emotionless and calculating.

"I don't like this."

Rick's words pulled Hattie away from her thoughts, and she glanced up at him with interest. He shook his head in the direction Meela had gone, crossing his arms over his chest grimly.

"A hostage situation...I don't like it one bit."


	7. Uninhibited

**Uninhibited**

It was well after midnight, but the deck was well-lit by electric lanterns, and everyone on board seemed too agitated to sleep. Hattie sat at a table with Gabe and his friends and Campbell Wily, a drink in her hand that she didn't really want to be sipping. The ice melted lazily and she pretended to be relaxed, though everything inside her felt tense and apprehensive. Her companions had drunk themselves past such feelings, it seemed, and occupied the air with loud, obnoxious laughter about stories that were only a little funny to begin with. Hattie kept a weary smile on her face and pretended to listen. Pretending to find herself at ease through a false sense of comfort in strangers and their jokes. "Thank God," everyone kept saying. "Thank God Ms. Nais and her crew were here." And Hattie _wanted_ to be thankful, too. Certainly she ought to be, but -

"How're you doing?"

She jumped at the sound of her brother's voice, and her gaze quickly flitted up to meet his. He put a hand on her shoulder and dropped into an empty seat next to her. Hattie glanced at it curiously. A moment ago, Gabe had been sitting just there...and she hadn't even noticed him leave.

"I'm fine," she sighed, finally taking a sip from her glass. "Where have you been?"

Rick nodded in the direction of a vacant stretch of deck. "You remember that English brother and sister?"

Hattie raised an incredulous eyebrow. "You mean Evelyn and Jonathan Carnahan?"

He grunted and glanced away from her curious eyes. "Evelyn was there reading. I went and talked with her for a minute."

She gave him a devilish little smile. "Oh? Really?"

Rick rolled his eyes and took a sip from the glass of whiskey in his hand. "Yeah, really. I just wanted to, you know, apologize for...not taking them to Hamunaptra and all..."

Hattie could hardly believe what she was hearing. She couldn't help the silly grin on her face as she stared at her brother in amusement. He rolled his eyes again and turned his attention away from her, pretending to listen to Campbell Wily recount the tale of her lost eye. Hattie crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair, still tickled by the idea of her big, brave brother making up such a funny excuse to talk to Evelyn Carnahan.

"An' it popped clean out 'a my head! I swear before the Almighty!"

The table errupted with laughter, and Hattie forced a smile. She was tired of the Americans' hefty guffahs and Campbell's backwoodsy cadence. She told her stories like a bluegrass ballad, and Hattie had had enough. Such things normally amused her, but she felt like the only sane person in an asylum, and didn't want to pretend to be drunk beyond her inhibitions anymore.

She told Rick she was going to bed and drifted away from the table, down the deck. The air was cool and the moon hung like a big, white saucer in the sky. She heard animals rustling along the Nile, a lumbering hippo or a snapping crocodile, perhaps, and her breath caught again at the thought of the barge almost sinking. She might have died in the river or in the chaos on deck... She might have died, and she ought to be grateful, except...

Except that Meela's man Lock-Nah had grabbed her, and used her as a shield against this mysterious Ardeth Bay. If Ardeth and his men (the Med-Jai?) were the ruthless cutthroats, then why had he surrendered? All he had to do was run her through with his sword and continue on to Lock-Nah, but he hadn't. He surrendered, and Lock-Nah must have known he would, or else he wouldn't have tried it at all. Between the two of them, Lock-Nah seemed increasingly more ruthless. And Meela...

Hattie still didn't know what to think of Meela, but her stomach twisted with distrustful apprehension. _A hostage situation...I don't like it one bit. _Rick's words echoed in Hattie's mind, giving her gut feels just cause. If Ardeth really was so important to the Med-Jai, then Meela was putting them all in danger by making him her prisoner. What did Hamunaptra have that was so very important to her? The riches certainly appealed to most, but Meela wasn't hurting for money.

Hattie came to the stairs leading below deck and stopped. She knew most of Meela's men had slunk back down there, and even though she was more or less a part of their "team," she found herself afraid to go to her cabin. She bit her lip and told herself she was being ridiculous, even though she felt very certain that she _wasn't_, and took the first step down. Her foot had barely steadied itself before a wheezing, accented voice piped up:

"I wouldn't go down there if I were you."

Hattie gasped in surprise, turning her head this way and that in search of the voice. After a moment, her gaze collided with Beni, hunched down on the floor, smoking a cigarette.

"They are doing some kind of witchcraft or something."

Hattie raised an eyebrow incredulously. "Is that supposed to be a joke?"

He shook his head fervently, looking her in the face with his wide, pathetic eyes. "No. They are chanting and making strange noises in that woman's room. It is some kind of curse, so I came up here."

Hattie frowned, glancing down the stairs cautiously. The steps sunk into the darkness below, and she didn't want to admit that she was even more frightened to go downstairs.

"That's ridiculous," she finally managed to say, so half-heartedly that she didn't even believe it. Beni scoffed under his breath.

"Who are they, anyway?" he muttered. "O'Connell would never take such people to Hamunaptra."

Hattie sighed. "I don't know. They just offered us a lot of money, and... I don't know. I think it was a mistake."

She glanced down to see that Beni had perked up with interest. "How much money?"

Hattie frowned at him. "That's a really rude question."

He rolled his eyes and took a drag from his cigarette. "They are in the habit of throwing around money. They gave me two hundred dollars to keep that desert man in my room."

Hattie turned away from the stairs to look him full in the eye. She stared at him for a brief moment, a strange idea forming in her mind that only felt a little more awkward than it seemed. Hattie shrugged off her inhibitions and asked:

"In your room? With you?"

Beni snorted. "Is that not what I said? He is all tied up and one of those guards stands outside all the time. Except I think he left to go do that chanting..."

She bit her lip and glanced down the stairs again.

"Give me the key to your room."


	8. Leap of Faith

**Leap of Faith**

"No."

Hattie raised her eyebrows at Beni's flat response, and conjured up her most adorable and alluring pout. "Oh, come on. Why not?"

He glared back at her suspiciously. "What do you want it for?"

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes and retorted, "To steal your valuables. What do you think? I want to talk to that desert chieftain."

Laughter hissed between his teeth in a scoff. "What the hell for?"

Hattie put her hands on her hips and looked at him like he'd asked the most obvious question in the world. "Don't you think what's happened here is the teensiest bit odd?"

"Yes. That is why I am up here and not down there."

Hattie let out an exasperated sigh, and glanced back down the deck. She certainly didn't want to return to the drunken hubbub down there; she supposed she could just give up and go to her room as she'd planned, but, well...She'd be dammed if she couldn't charm an ugly, pathetic little fellow like this out of his room key. What was the point of being pretty if she couldn't talk her way into getting what she wanted?

She turned her attention back to Beni and offered him a glittering smile, leaning down close to ask him in a husky and suggestive voice, "Now isn't there _anything_ I could do to change your mind?"

He gave her an ugly grin and motioned her closer. She took a deep breath and let him pull her ear to his lips, bracing herself for whatever depraved thing she'd have to promise to fulfill (and tactfully avoid ever,_ ever_ doing). His breath was sticky against her skin as he whispered:

"How much have you got on you?"

Hattie balked, grimacing worse than if he'd asked her to do, well, just about anything with him. She glared at him in disgust: "Are you kidding me? Money? You want _money?_ From_ me?"_

He nodded taking the final drag from his cigarette and tossing it on the floor. He pulled himself to his feet and looked her in the eye. He held out one hand and dug the other into his pocket, fishing out his room key.

"Give me your wallet, and you can use my key."

Hattie crossed her arms over her chest, continuing to stare at him in utter disbelief. "Seriously? There's _nothing_ else I could do for you?"

He gave her a cynical smile. "You're a tease. Do you think I forgot the first time we met?"

Hattie felt her face flush, and tried to clear her throat nonchalantly.

"You know the saying," he said, a greasy and aggrivating grin on his face. " 'Fool me once, fool me never again...' Or something."

"Fine," she said with broken dignity, pulling her purse off her shoulder to dig out her wallet. She handed it over with a defeated sigh, and he dropped his room key in her hand with a look of smug satisfaction.

"I will be here when you are done," he said.

Hattie's teeth clenched. "I want that wallet back. I don't care how empty it is."

She heard him chuckle at her as she started down the stairs, but she quickly forgot her annoying encounter with Beni Gabor as she reached the lower level and tiptoed down the dark hall. She could hear strange, ritualistic sounds coming from Meela's room and shivered. She squinted at the key in her hand and read the numbers engraved on its head before continuing hurriedly down the hall. She came to Beni's door and stopped, out of breath from walking briskly and from a thrilling kind of fear.

"This is it," she whispered under her breath, and before she could lose her nerve, she jammed the key in the lock and opened the door.

The cabin was lit by a kerosene lamp on the desk, and seat at the desk, with his hands tightly bound behind his back, was the desert chieftain, Ardeth Bay. His posture was stiff from his entrapments, but his chin rest on his chest and he appeared to be dozing. Hattie ran her tongue over her lips and said quietly:

"Hello?"

His eyes blinked open, and he turned to look at her in surprise.

"How did you get in here?"

She shrugged nervously. "I, uh, bribed your roommate."

Ardeth snorted. "It is good to know that anyone can walk in here at any time for the right price," he said dismally.

Hattie glanced at her feet; she hadn't thought to consider how invasive this was, and a part of her thought she should just apologize and leave...but she was already in the room.

"So who are you?" his deep, unreadable voice jerked her gaze back up to his.

She swallowed hard. "My name is Hattie. During the fight, Lock-Nah grabbed me, and - "

"I remember you," he said.

Hattie's eyes retreated to the floor. Her mind felt blank, and every question that had been buzzing around in her head had floated away the moment she met his dark, mysterious gaze. She took a few backward steps towards the door. Her first inclination was right. It was silly to be here.

"I'm sorry," she said, her face growing redder by the second. "This was very rude of me..."

She reached her hand back to grasp the handle. Her fingers wrapped around the cold, vaguely moist metal, but he stopped her before she could turn the knob:

"You came here for a reason."

Hattie froze. She glanced up and met his eyes, and they stared at each other for a strange and tense moment that felt like an eternity. Hattie's head felt light from the anxious pulsing of blood, and her numb hand dropped from the doorknob thoughtlessly.

"I want to know what's going on," she said, the words dropping quickly and breathlessly from her lips.

He raised his eyebrows. "You journey to Hamunaptra?"

She nodded. "Yes."

His eyes hardened with a severe kind of passion. "Then you are in grave danger."

Hattie glanced back at the door anxiously before looking to Ardeth again. "Why?"

He nodded at the vacant chair in the corner, and Hattie pulled it up to sit at the desk across from him. He told her a strange story in a hushed tone, and if it wasn't for the earnest look in his eyes, beseeching her to believe him, she would have immediately dismissed him as crazy or hopelessly backwards and superstitious. He told her about an ancient Egyptian priest named Imhotep who loved the pharaoh's mistress, and how he was cursed with a most terrible incantation. He told her that Lock-Nah and his men belonged to a cult dating back to Imhotep's loyal priests, and that they were determined to resurrect Imhotep as a god on earth.

When he finished, Hattie took a deep breath, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. "And that's why you attacked our boat?"

"Yes."

"But _lots_ of people go searching for Hamunaptra," she said pointedly. "Do you attack all their boats, too?"

Ardeth met her eyes evenly. "Someone on this boat has a key that can unlock the Book of the Dead and release the Creature."

She almost laughed at him, but just couldn't. He had such faith in what he was saying that she just couldn't bear to.

"But that's silly," she said at last in a tone that wasn't quite convincing. "That's only a myth..."

Ardeth grumbled something to himself in Arabic. "I would expect no less from an American."

Hattie gave him a pointed look. "Well it_ is_ pretty hard to believe."

He stared back at her stubbornly. "Perhaps for you. But what do you know of the ancients? Your country is barely a century and a half old."

She let out a sigh. "I guess I can't argue with you there," she said, resting her hand on her chin. She glanced at the door, remembering something. "So what about the danger of us all being attacked by a rescue party? How 'grave' is that?"

Ardeth sighed loudly, attempting to shake a black curl away from his face. Hattie reached towards him instinctively, but stopped.

"May I?"

He nodded, making an exasperated noise in his throat. She reached up and pushed the curl behind his ear.

"Thank you," he said, sounding almost embarrassed. He shook his head, and quickly changed the subject. "As to my men coming to rescue me...I don't know. It will certainly be a precarious situation."

"That's what I was afraid of," Hattie said with a sigh. She looked into Ardeth's eyes thoughtfully, and despite herself and all reason, and everything she'd ever been brought up to believe about curses, she found herself trusting him. Maybe he was just a superstitious native, but he was much clearer and more direct about why he was here than Meela had yet to be. And between the two of them, she'd take his form of crazy.

"If what you say is true," she started slowly, "then we have to do something about Meela - preferrably before your men attack us and any more innocent people die."

Ardeth raised his eyebrows curiously, and a little smirk twitched in the corner of his lip. " 'We'? I thought you did not believe me."

Hattie felt her face grow hot, both from self-consciousness and from how terribly handsome he looked with an amused expression. "Maybe I'm going on a little faith here."

He appeared surprised, but only nodded his head. He stared deep into her eyes, and her breath caught in her throat. She could tell he was thinking, calculating something. She didn't know what to do or say, but she couldn't bear to glance from that dark, enigmatic gaze.

"We need to avoid the City of the Dead altogether," he said at last. "We need the guides to instead take everybody to the Med-Jai camp."

Hattie nodded her head, thinking this over. "My brother is one of the guides. Maybe, if you talked to him, we could get him to agree. He didn't want to take anyone to Hamunaptra in the first place."

Ardeth nodded quietly, and glanced towards the door, letting out a sigh. "And the other one, who has this room?"

A dismal look crept across her face, and he nodded again. "That is what I thought."

Hattie sighed. "I get the impression he'll do anything for a price...but he just took my wallet, so..."

Ardeth raised an eyebrow, and she glanced down at her hands sheepishly.

"Find a way to bring your brother here. He and I will talk. As for the other man..."

"Beni," Hattie said, the name leaving a sour taste in her mouth.

"We will have to find some way to convince him to agree."

A little smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth as an idea occurred to Hattie. "You know, my brother might be useful in that department, too."

Ardeth looked at her quizzically, but only said, "Well, I will leave that to you, then."

He watched her a moment longer, and she stared back at him, feeling strangely compelled to stay...but having no excuse. Reluctantly, she rose to her feet and bid him good night. She could feel his eyes on her as she walked across the cabin and slipped through the door. A thrill ran through her veins, and she was vaguely aware that she might have agreed to take part in something rather crazy...but just then, all she wanted to think about was his dark, endless gaze.

"Hey!"

The strange voice made her jump and give out a little cry of surprise. She looked up to see Lock-Nah striding towards her.

"What were you doing in that room?"

Hattie swallowed hard, her mind buzzing for an alibi, any alibi...

"Umm..."

"Are you acquainted with that man?" he demanded before she could say anything more.

"N-no, I - "

Hattie's gaze flitted around the hallway, and she suddenly noticed Beni skulking towards his room. He froze when he saw Lock-Nah standing there, so very intimidating, and met her eyes in irritable confusion.

"With that one," she blurted, pointing directly at Beni. She saw Beni's eyes widened, and watched him begin to mouth her a threat before Lock-Nah turned to look at him, and he was frozen with fear again.

"That one?" Lock-Nah asked skeptically. "What would you be doing in that man's room?"

"Um..." She forced a wide smile, and began inching around Lock-Nah, glancing every few seconds at Beni. "Darling, I'm afraid I'm not feeling up to drinks tonight. Let's make it a date tomorrow, hmm?"

Beni just gaped at her in confusion; her expression begged him not to say anything as she came to stand next to him at last.

"Here's your key," she added, pressing the key into his palm. She held onto his hand, flashing Lock-Nah a dismissive smile. "Now, if you'd excuse us, I'd like to say goodnight to my darling here."

Lock-Nah studied her under an incredulous brow, but stalked off down the hall and up the stairs. When he was out of earshot, Hattie let out a relieved sigh, and Beni tugged his hand free of hers.

"What the hell was that about?" he demanded.

Hattie stared down the hallway for a moment before pulling Beni a little closer and saying quietly. "I'm going to need to visit your room some more - "

"No."

" - and I'm going to need you to play along in front of Lock-Nah."

He gave her a puzzled glare. "Play along about what?"

She heaved an impatient sigh, glancing either way down the hall before looking at him in determination. "Look, for all intents and purposes right now, I need him to think we're spending a lot of time alone together in your cabin. He can't be suspicious of me being there."

Beni looked at her skeptically. "Nobody is going to believe we are screwing. Least of all that man."

Hattie crossed her arms over her chest. "Then we're going to tell people we are."

He chuckled, staring at her skeptically. "You _want_ people to think you're sleeping with me?"

"I just need an excuse."

He continued to eye her with suspicion. "Why should I help you? What is in it for me?"

She raised her eyebrows. "You're just hellbent on offending me, aren't you? Look, I'm letting you tell everyone on this damned boat that you're screwing me. You can't tell me that's not something you'd want people to think."

A greasy grin spread across his face. "Everyone, eh? O'Connell is going to think I am sticking it to his sister, and Campbell..." He chuckled darkly to himself.

"Well?" Hattie said, secretly relieved that she'd found some way to make a deal with Beni that didn't involve money or actual sex. It would apparently cost her her dignity, but if that's what it took to keep the treasure-seekers from getting killed in another Med-Jai attack, she'd do it.

Beni shrugged. "Fine. But you have to keep your brother from kicking my ass."

She held out her hand and he shook it. "Deal."


	9. A Deal with the Devil

**A Deal with the Devil**

The next morning, Hattie awoke to the sun glimmering through her window and the heavy, dank smell of river water. They were on Day Two of a three-day journey down the Nile, and she felt an urgent compulsion to get her brother in to talk with Ardeth. If his plan was going to work, she would need to arrange their meeting, and soon.

She hurriedly got out of bed and got dressed, freshening her face with a little lipstick and pinning some of her hair back away from her face. She gave herself a final look in the mirror before tugging on a pair of shoes and rushing down the hall to Rick's room. She knocked on the door, but he didn't answer. Breathing an anxious sigh, she turned and jogged up the stairs and onto the deck, looking frantically about for her brother. Her gaze collided instead with Campbell's hard, strange gaze, staring at her from one of the tables.

"Howdy there, sugar," she said pointedly. "Have a seat."

"I can't," Hattie started to say. "I'm looking for - "

"I said sit your little ass down."

Hattie swallowed hard and did as she was told, the notion suddenly dawning on her that Campbell was _also_ one of the guides. She'd completely forgotten about Campbell last night, and now the prospect of putting Ardeth's plan into action seemed more hopeless than ever.

"I been hearin' some things about you," she said mysteriously, pulling out a box of cigarettes from somewhere on her person and delicately removing one. "Smoke?"

"No thanks."

Campbell eyed her suspiciously. "Don't you smoke?"

Hattie shook her head. "It makes me sick."

Campbell's bright, orangey eyebrows jumped up her forehead incredulously. "Hmph. Ain't sure I can trust a gal who don't smoke. I always said there's no trustin' a body who don't start the day with a cup 'a coffee and end it with a drink. Know what I mean?"

Hattie stared back at her and tried to hide her puzzlement. "I drink coffee and liquor, if that's what you're wanting to know."

Campbell tapped her cigarette on the table before fixing it between her teeth and lighting it up. Her strange, off-kilter eyes fixated themselves on Hattie again.

"I been hearin' things. I think you know what things I might be talkin' about."

Hattie let out an impatient sigh. "I don't, actually."

Campbell breathed in a deep drag and let it out. "Things about you and our darling Mr. Gabor."

Hattie gritted her teeth, and fought the instinctive urge to dispell the rumor immediately. It was the only way she'd be able to visit Ardeth unnoticed, so she might as wel play along.

"Oh, um, yeah..."

Campbell pulled her cigarette from her mouth and used it to point at Hattie accusingly. "Now don't think I don't know what you see in that slummy little som'bitch. Been there, done that."

Hattie couldn't help but be genuinely interested in _what,_ exactly, Campbell claimed she saw in Beni Gabor.

"He's with you to pick at me. He thinks he'll really get my goat, knockin' boots with a pretty little feather of a thing like you. But he don't know I moved_ on_. I found me somethin' better. And you best do the same. That man can't love you. He don't love nothin'."

The grim intensity of Campbell's stare left Hattie at a loss for words. When she'd contrived this plot with Beni, her only real goal was being able to visit Ardeth as often as she needed to...or wanted to...over the next couple days. She hadn't even thought to consider how she was supposed to explain the relationship. Her mouth gaped with a want for words that, fortunately, she never had to find. Suddenly, her brother's voice broke through the air and bellowed:

"Oh, Hattie!"

His cynical, impatient tone wasn't terribly promising, but it was better than having to fumble her way through this intended intervention by Campbell. Hattie gave her a strained, polite smile, and started to mumble something about having to go as she jumped out of her seat. But Campbell took her hard by the wrist and pulled her close enough to whisper:

"You don't wanna listen to me, that's fine. Some things a body has to learn for itself. But don't believe a word he says about it - he's had the drip enough to know what in tarnation it is."

Hattie swallowed hard, and it was all she could do to nod her head and try not to look startled. She was in over her head and she couldn't afford to show it. Without another word, she hurried away from Campbell and down the deck to where her brother sat at a table with the other Americans and Jonathan.

"Good morning," she said with a cautious smile, her whole body tightening at the snickering expressions of the Americans, and the awestruck and disappointed look in Jonathan's eyes.

"Yeah, hey," Rick said irritably. "Sit down."

Hattie let out a sigh and took the only available seat.

"Settle something for us, because as much as I'm sure all these guys deserve a good ass-kicking, I'm not in the mood to do it all at once unless I have to."

Hattie braced herself for the inevitable question, unable to look for very long into her brother's earnest, desperate blue eyes.

"Is it true about you and Beni?"

The Americans started chuckling, and Hattie had half a mind to tell Rick the truth and deal with finding another reason to be in Beni's room later, but she didn't have a chance to take that leap. Just then, Beni waltzed up to the table, all toothy grins and smug, suggestive glances. He walked right over to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

"My darling, good morning!" he exclaimed, giving her an exaggerated kiss on the cheek. It was all she could do not to clock him in front of every shocked set of eyes. She bit down hard on her lip and looked at him as inconspicuously as possible, but he didn't have a care at all for the glint of a warning in her eye. "Won't you let me sit with you?"

Hattie glanced at one of the many empty tables and said, "Grab one of those chairs...um...dear."

"Oh, now you are the shy one!" he said, glancing pointedly at Rick. "But last night, she was like a wildcat!"

"Oh, God," Hattie breathed. What had she gotten herself into with this arrangement?

The Americans could barely contain their amusement. But Rick wasn't remotely amused, and in one swift motion, he was out of his seat and had Beni by the collar several inches off of the ground.

"If you've got any will to live,_ little buddy_, you better leave my sister alone," Riick said, grim as the grave.

The laughter had stopped, and the only sound on the deck was Beni's wheezing, uneasy gasps of breath. He ran his tongue over his lips and said in a hurried, high-pitched tone:

"Oh, if only I could, O'Connell! But your sister and I are in love!"

"Bullshit," Rick retorted.

"Why don't you ask her?" Beni managed to say, looking lightheaded as he struggled for air.

Now all eyes were on Hattie. She could see a glint of cold defiance in Beni's eye, daring her to let her brother hurt him and let her whole plan fall apart. She met his gaze evenly for a brief moment before breathing a defeated sigh and looking at her brother apologetically.

"He's right," she said as convincingly as she could muster. "I love him. We're just...you know, _so_...in love. Crazy in love..."

Rick dropped Beni in astonishment and stared incredulously at his sister.

"Really," he said, so skeptical he couldn't even raise it to a question. _"Him."_

Hattie glanced at Beni, fumbling about on the floor in an effort to catch his breath and stand up. She looked back to her brother quickly.

"Yep."

Rick raised his eyebrows. " 'In love'?"

_"So_ in love," Hattie said. But her brother's expression was as cynical as ever. He looked between her and Beni, and then glanced at his coffee on the table, heaving a sigh.

"I'm gonna have to get some scotch or something for this," he said, picking up the mug and crossing the deck to the bar.

Beni had managed to get himself on his feet, and stood over Hattie, watery-eyed and coughing from Rick's assault, but smug nonetheless. He pulled Hattie out of her seat, sat down in the chair, and then pulled her into his lap.

"See, my darling? We do not have to be afraid of your brother any more."

Daniels scoffed. "If I was you, buddy, I'd still be plenty afraid."

Rick returned with his coffee now properly spiked, shaking his head in grim bewilderment at his sister and Beni before attempting to shrug it off, and finally sat down.

"Is not this wonderful, my friend?" Beni said with exaggerated earnestness. "To think, we might one day spend Christmas, just like this!"

Rick choked on his coffee.

"The three of us..." He gazed at Hattie with a certain kind of cruel, faked adoration, and put his hand over her stomach. "Perhaps_ four_ of us..."

Hattie gritted her teeth, and Rick's wide-eyed glare jumped up to them in shock. She sucked in a little breath, meeting her brother's eyes desperately.

"Rick, could we talk privately for a minute?"

Rick nodded his head, getting up from the table quickly. Hattie was more than eager to get out of Beni's lap, too. She hurried down the deck, Rick matching her pace in long strides. When they were out of earshot, she pulled him closer and told him anxiously:

"I'm not sleeping with him. I needed an alibi to be in his room because I think that desert chieftain knows something we don't about Meela. But now I'm in over my head. I'm in _way_ over my head."

Rick glanced down the deck, a grim, calculating smile on his face, before turning his attention back to Hattie. He let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh, thank God."

She looked up at him urgently. "You have to talk to this chieftain, Rick. We can't take Meela to Hamunaptra. It sounds crazy, but we can't."

Rick nodded his head slowly, his gaze unfaltering. "I'll talk to him."

Hattie breathed an anxious sigh, glancing down the deck before returning her desperate gaze to her brother. "Also, you have to help me with Beni. I don't knw what I'm going to do, but I can't put up with this for the whole trip."

That grim, calculating smile returned to Rick's face, and his eye twinkled.

"I can handle Beni," he said assuredly. "But first, let's talk to this chieftain."

"Ardeth," Hattie said quickly. Rick gave her a strange look, and she nearly blushed. "It's just - his name is Ardeth."


	10. Playing with Fire

**Playing with Fire**

"There's my future brother-in-law!" Rick shouted with a dangerous kind of congeniality. He clapped Beni a little too hard on the back, and took a hold of his shoulder, jerking him out of his seat at the table and dragging him down the deck. Beni let out a high-pitched yelp and struggled to gain his balance, stumbling along behind Rick as best he could.

"What are you doing?" he demanded in a panicky whine.

Rick shrugged his big shoulders. "I just thought we could all sit around, have a chat - "

They arrived to the stairs leading below deck, where Hattie waited nervously. She met Beni's confused eyes with an irritated glare.

"She promised she would not let you hurt me!" Beni squeaked.

Rick glanced at his sister, and she shrugged. "You wouldn't _have_ to hurt him..."

Rick raised his eyebrows. "You sure?"

"Of course she is sure!" Beni said quickly. "We are in love - "

"Yeah, you can stop with that one," Rick told him. "The jig's up. Now let us into your room."

Beni's jaw dropped, and he eyed Hattie suspiciously. "But you said - "

"Now," Rick cut in, his hands flexing around his shoulder holsters. Beni let out a little cry and hurried ahead of them down the stairs. Rick motioned for Hattie to go next, and he brought up the rear. Hattie felt Beni glance back at her, more than once, with something like betrayal in his eyes, but she couldn't be sure. The lighting in the hallway below deck was rather dim.

They arrived at his door (which was surprisingly unguarded at the moment) and Beni unlocked it, flinging it open irritably. Rick gave him a saracastic smile.

"Thanks. Now beat it."

Beni's eyes shifted suspiciously from Rick to the room, and back to him again. "What is this all about, anyway?"

Hattie gulped, staring at her brother with wide, begging eyes. But Rick just shrugged his shoulders and pushed past him into the room, snatching his key from his hand on the way.

"We'll give this back when we're done," he said in a firm tone, daring Beni to protest. Beni watched him with a disgruntled sneer, muttering something under his breath in another language. Hattie side-stepped him awkwardly, not quite glancing up at him. She heard him say something that sounded a little threatening to her back, and then slunk out, slamming the door behind him.

Hattie glanced at her brother anxiously. "Are you sure that was such a good idea?"

Rick gave her a look. "Trust me. I know how to handle Beni. If you try to bargain with him, he'll take you for everything you got. It's better to just deal with him on his terms."

She let out a skeptical sigh, but nodded her head, turning her attention across the room to where Ardeth sat at the desk. Her heart swelled with sympathy when she saw him slouched in his seat, flexing his hands uncomfortably against the restraints. He glanced up at them, and even though he didn't smile, she could see relief in his endless, dark eyes.

"Ardeth," she said with a smile, hurrying over to him. "This is my brother, Rick."

He glanced up, and the two men nodded at each other. Hattie couldn't help but notice a flicker of recognition in Ardeth's eyes; his brow furrowed, and he blinked, and it was gone.

"So," Rick said, "Hattie says I have to talk to you. What's the deal?"

Ardeth told Rick everything that he'd told Hattie, about the City of the Dead and the curse on Imhotep. Hattie glanced nervously at her brother, wondering how he would react to such an outlandish tale. It had been years since she'd seen Rick, but he'd always been so level-headed. His expression was unreadable, though a cynical smirk twitched in the corner of his mouth as Ardeth told him about Meela and her determination to resurrect Imhotep with an artifact that was somewhere on this boat.

When he finished, Rick breathed a sigh, sitting there quietly in the very seat Hattie had been in only the night before. Hattie glanced between him and Ardeth anxiously, holding her breath in anticipation of what he might say, how he might respond.

At last he said, "Well, I don't know about all that. But I know there's definitely something wrong with that place."

Hattie couldn't help breathing a relieved sigh, stealing a little smile at Ardeth.

"And I can't say I totally trust somebody who's willing to throw ten thousand dollars away just to get there," he added, running a hand through his hair. "But - "

Hattie and Ardeth never got a chance to hear what Rick was about to tell them next. The door burst open, and Hattie let out a little cry as half a dozen red-robed warriors poured in, one of them taking a hold of her and the other five occupying themselves with Rick. She saw her brother go for his gun just before she was shoved onto the bed on her stomach. She struggled against the hands that grappled for both of her wrists and inevitably forced them behind her back, binding them together tightly. She could hear the small battle being waged against her brother; but by the time she was properly bound and a cruel hand jerked her back onto her feet, his hands were tied behind his back as well, a man on either side keeping him firmly in place.

"Mr. O'Connell."

The smooth, cultured voice slid into the room like a snake, and Hattie immediately turned her attention to the other side of the room, where Meela leaned in the doorway. Beni lurked just behind her, a satisfied scowl on his face.

"Might I ask what's going on in here?" she said, an unamused smirk nestled in the corner of her mouth.

Hattie glanced back at her brother fearfully, and he met her eyes with confusion and worry. Her heart sank to see him so out of control, and her blood started to pound much faster through her whole body, making her feel light-headed. The silence in the room was defeaning, and Hattie blinked hard, trying to retain some semblance of control over the anxiety that was buzzing through her veins.

Meela raised an eyebrow, staring unblinking at Rick for another agonizing moment before letting out a little sigh.

"Mr. O'Connell, I'm afraid I'm going to have to terminate our agreement. I've found someone else who's just a little more...trustworthy, it would seem."

Hattie sucked in a little breath, her hands tightening into fists behind her back.

"You and your sister have two options," she continued smoothly. "You can either remain with us until we dock at the end of the day tomorrow, and then go on your way back to Cairo, or..." Her eyes hardened, glaring at him in a dangerous, black flash. "We can shoot you both right now and toss you overboard."

Rick gave her a bitter smile. "Guess we'll take the first one."

Meela almost smirked. "I thought so. However, since you've proven yourself less than trustworthy, I'm afraid I'm going to have to keep you imprisoned for the remainder of our journey."

"Seems fair," he said sarcastically.

She did smirk now. "Good. We've made arrangements for you in seperate rooms - "

"Let me keep her," Beni cut in cruelly.

Meela turned and glanced behind her, as if she'd forgotten he was even standing there.

"I'd rather they were all seperated," she said dismissively.

But Beni crossed his arms over his chest, shooting a little glare at Rick. "I did not have to come to you with this." His eyes turned to Hattie, and he mocked her with an exaggerated, pititable expression. "And you see, we are just _so_ in love..."

Hattie's stomach tightened in nervous knots.

Meela let out an impatient sigh and waved her hand. "Fine. I don't care. It doesn't really matter." She turned her attention to one of her men. "Take care of it."

And then she was gone, slipping out of the room like an elegant ghost. The men pushed and tugged her brother out of the room, and she met his eyes. The words, "Rick, I'm sorry," were caught in her throat, and she just couldn't bring herself to say them, or anything at all. She stared at him desperately, hoping he could see the words in her eyes. But his gaze was so fret with worry and the frustration of helplessness that she couldn't tell if he understood or not.

_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

He was pulled past Beni, who watched his captivity in gloating amusement, leaning against the doorframe where Meela had been a moment ago.

"If you lay _one finger_ on her, I'll - "

Beni scoffed. "You will - _what?_ Enjoy the other Americans, O'Connell. They're real assholes."

Rick was dragged down the hall, and Beni stepped easily into his room, pulling the door shut behind him. Hattie was suddenly aware of the ironclad grip of the warrior on her arm, and sucked in a nervous breath.

"Where do you want her?" he asked Beni impatiently.

She glanced over and met Beni's cruel smirk, and winced.


	11. The Quick and the Dead

**The Quick and the Dead**

Hattie's mind raced, speeding thoughts fueled by adrenaline and anxiety whipping around in her head. She barely heard Beni tell the warrior that he could leave her where she was. She glanced at Ardeth, bound helplessly at the table, and could see the frustrated anger and concern broiling in his eyes. She pursed her lips together, and willed herself to look calm. She willed herself to look like he could trust her.

Because, by God, Hattie O'Connell hadn't made it this far in a strange country as a vulnerable, single foreign woman without her wits.

She glanced away from Ardeth and watched Beni close the door and lock it. She watched him turn around and give her a nasty, superior glance. And she clenched her teeth, because she knew - she _knew_ - she was smarter than him. And even if she wasn't, she had something he didn't have, and something he could never comprehend or stand up against. And that was the natural (in her case, fortunately beautiful) allure of the female form.

She didn't have to be smarter than him, and she didn't have to be particularly pretty...but those things helped. They were going to help.

He sauntered over to her with a nauseating air of self-importance, and she forced her best, barely-calm smile.

"You think you are_ so_ smart," he told her. She found that a little ironic, since she _had_ just been thinking that very thing - though not in the context he was indicating.

She met his eyes evenly. "Not smart enough, it seems."

"No," he said with a smirk, wagging a finger in her face. "I am the smart one. I bet you think I did not know what you and turban-head over there were talking about last night. Well, I do. I heard it all. I knew Meela would pay a fine price for that information, and she did not disappoint."

Hattie swallowed hard, and despite the scattered plan that she was concocting by the minute in her head, she suddenly felt more than a little foolish. She didn't know Beni well, but her brother didn't trust him as far as he could throw him (even though that was relatively further than the saying meant to allow), and she should have been more cautious. Of course he came and eavesdropped on their conversation. And of course he held onto that information until the most profitable moment. He had agreed to her arrangement of using his room as a farce, an opportunity to annoy Rick, and then waited until he could trap them all and conveniently take Rick's job out from under him.

"Was this your plan all along?" she asked quietly. "Getting me in your room for the night?"

Beni snickered. "That was an added bonus."

She nodded slowly, and met his eyes with a sense of defeated duty. He reached a hand up to her face, and her whole body tensed under his touch.

"Having done this both ways, it would really go better for both of us if you get me a drink first," she said quickly, the words pouring out almost faster than she could say them.

His brow furrowed, and he gave her a suspicious look. "I don't want to go all the way up there and get you a drink."

She met his eyes as earnestly as she could, and stared at him for a moment. "I won't fight you. I just want a drink first." She gave him a nervous and suggestive smile, "I'm _marvelous_ after a drink."

Beni eyed her for another moment, and huffed an irritated sigh. "Fine."

He grumbled over to the door, shooting her a warning look.

"Aren't you going to ask me what I want?" she called.

He frowned. "You will drink whatever I bring you, and you will like it."

"That's not very gentlemanly - "

He called her something in Hungarian and slunk out the door, slamming it shut behind him. Hattie breathed a sigh of relief, turning her attention quickly over to Ardeth.

"Please tell me you have a knife somewhere on you."

For a moment he just stared at her, his dark eyes a mixture of confusion and astonishment. He shook his head, glancing away from her to the door, and managed to say:

"Um, no. They took all of my weapons."

"Shit," Hattie breathed, chewing on her lip. "I don't think we have much time." She concentrated hard for a moment, and then nodded her head. "Okay."

He watched her carefully bend down and step first one foot, then the other, over her bound wrists. Now that they were in front of her, she could see where the rope had been knotted. Sucking in a deep breath, she took hold of the knot in her teeth, and started to work her right hand out of the rope. It was tight and rough about her wrist, and not at all big enough to slip her hand through. But it was only rope, and she had slender hands. She worked the rope up to her knuckles with relative ease, but it was much too narrow to pull over that wide part of her hand without some pain. She bit down harder on the knot and jerked the rope slowly, agonizingly over her knuckles, the sharp barbs of wiry twine cutting into her skin. She pulled it off at last, a blood-stained mass of rope that was just going to have to hang from her other wrist for now, because she wasn't going to waste the time pulling it off that hand, too.

She glanced up at Ardeth, who met her gaze frantically. She let out a hopeless sigh at the mess of knots that trapped him in the chair.

"You're sure you don't have a knife?"

He nodded his head hopelessly. She quickly started rifling around the room, pulling out drawers in search of something sharp. And then she saw the kerosene lamp on the bedside table.

"This isn't going to look like a great idea," she told him, snatching the lamp and twisting off the protective bulp of glass that surrounded the flame. She knelt down and held the lamp against the rope around his ankles, grateful for the leather boots that covered his feet as the flame lapped against them. It cut through the rope in a few seconds, and she quickly pulled it away and set it on the floor, taking the singed rope in either hand and breaking it apart.

"Don't underestimate yourself," he told her as she stood up, catching his eye for a brief moment before hurrying behind him and holding the flame to his hand restraints.

"I'm sorry in advance if I burn you," she said. She heard him wince, her hands sweating empathetically as she held the flame just a little too close to his. They had bound his hands tighter than his feet, with more rope, and she felt an eternity inching by in those borrowed minutes while she held the flame, knowing it was burning his hands and anxiously awaiting the damning sound of -

A key jingled in the lock. Hattie was too nerve-wracked to breathe a single one of the curses clattering in her head. At last the flame singed through the last bit of rope, and Ardeth pulled his hands apart with a relieved sigh, just as the door swung open and Beni slipped in, a couple of drinks in his hands. He glanced between both of them in bewilderment for the sliver of a second before immediately shouting at the top of his lungs for Meela and Lock-Nah.

Ardeth stumbled to his feet and charged at the other man, who let out a whining squeak and would have shot out of the room and down the hall, had he not immediately collided with the guard outside the door, throwing them both to the floor with a loud smack. Hattie felt Ardeth grasp her wrist and pull her along behind him. They tore down the hallway, past the cursing tangle of Beni and the guard on the floor, and made it to the stairs just before Meela's men poured out of her room to see what all the commotion was about.

Ardeth shoved Hattie ahead of him up the stairs, bullets whizzing past their ears in a continous, threatening song. They made it on deck and sped past tables of confused passengers. Ardeth took hold her her hand again, racing past her right to the railing, and in one sudden, fluid motion, picking her up over it and throwing her into the Nile.

She was suspended in the air for a moment that felt much longer than it probably was before crashing into the shockingly cold depths of the water. Her body sank down below the surface, and she was surrounded on all sides by the placid, unknowing depths for a few moments that slowed her racing heart and might have cleared her mind.

But then she felt Ardeth's hand about hers again, and she was pulled up to the surface, to the sounds of gunshots and the urgency of being hunted.

"Can you swim?" he shouted at her over the noise.

"Yes," she told him.

"Good," he said, letting go of her. "Swim to shore."

She barely managed to sputter, "Okay," swimming as hard as she could after him, into the darkness. After ages of beating against the waves with sore, used-up muscles, her feet scraped against sand and marsh. She stumbled through the shallow water, onto her feet, only to collapse a few yards later onto the shore.

She wanted to rest her face in the sand and close her eyes; to just breathe for a few moments and regroup. But Ardeth was taking hold of her arm and tugging her to her feet.

"Come on. We cannot stay here."

Hattie stared up at him in confusion, but forced her limbs to work and get herself back on her feet.

"Why not?" she asked wearily, attempting to keep up with his determined gait.

Ardeth breathed a sigh, glancing over his shoulder at the barge. Hattie followed his gaze, wondering at the bright, cheery little vessel floating so languidly on the river. It was the only source of light in the blackness of the marsh.

"We must assume they will come after me," he told her between ragged breaths. "Also, crocodiles."

Hattie's body tensed, and she immediately found the energy to walk a little faster.

"What are we going to do?" she asked, desperation creeping into her voice the further into the darkness they walked.

"Tonight," he said, "we are going to the village of Ansar, and asking for protection."


	12. Bewitched

_**Author's Note. **It's a double-header, folks. Happy Friday!_

_So...I'm not one-hundred percent certain about this chapter. Without being all SPOILERS, I'm not sure if this was the point in the story for this moment, or not. So if you have any light to shed on that, I'd appreciate it!_

* * *

**Bewitched**

"You were surprisingly calm...back there."

Ardeth's voice startled her; in the minutes since they left the shore and trudged through marsh and sand to a little dirt road, the only sounds between them had been their weary breathing. They had walked maybe ten minutes on the road, Hattie's shoes squishing uncomfortably against her feet, and her dress clinging close and smelly to her body. The only thing she had the energy to focus on was her extreme discomfort, and even that she'd come to accept with the obedience of exhaustion.

She glanced over at Ardeth, barely making out his face in the glow of the moon overhead. He wasn't looking at her.

"Thanks," she said at last.

"I thought you would be frightened."

Hattie blinked, crossing her arms uncomfortably over her chest.

"But you handled that - that cowardly_ excuse_ for a man...very calmly."

She chewed on her lip uncertainly and glanced away from him. "Yeah, well...He wasn't _really_ going to...you know."

Ardeth scoffed. "He could have fooled me."

But Hattie shook her head. "No, he's not the type."

She didn't have to look at Ardeth to know he was raising his eyebrows incredulously. "The type?"

"He's not - listen. I know it sounds odd, but he was all talk. If I had really fought him, and screamed and cried and all of that - he wouldn't have gone through with it. He's obviously a scumbag, and I'm sure he's taken advantage of more than a few women drunk past their inhibitions, but..._that?_ He's a normal man as far as that's concerned." She let out a thin, shaking sigh. "It's only a special kind of monster that wants that."

She could feel Ardeth watching her thoughtfully, but she didn't turn to look at him. She was grateful for the darkness, for being able to hide the nervous palor that had come over her face.

"When you said you had done it 'both ways,' you mean...it has happened to you before."

Hattie shook her head fervently, and said in a voice that wasn't quite convincing, "No. I've just...heard stories..."

His gaze persisted for a moment longer, but when she refused to look at him, he turned his attention back to the road.

"We will come up on Ansar soon."

She nodded her head and said nothing. They walked for another few minutes in silence, and then Ardeth spoke again:

"Thank you. For saving my life."

Hattie glanced up and met his eyes. "I couldn't just leave you there...and without you, I could have never made it out the door."

"Regardless," he said, "I am grateful. You have trusted me when no one else would."

She stopped, and he stopped, too. They stood together in the road and she reminded him quietly, "You wouldn't have hurt me. Lock-Nah grabbed me because he knew you wouldn't have hurt me. Anyone would have trusted you after that."

"Yet no one did."

Hattie glanced at her feet, barely making them out in the darkness. Suddenly, she felt the hot threat of tears against her eyelids, and she sucked back a sob, because the weight of all the anxieties and the consequences of her decisions were collapsing on top of her and taking her breath away.

"What's going to happen?" she whispered. "What if they find us? What about my brother?"

She suddenly felt his hand around hers, gently and warm. She glanced up, seeking solace in the depths of his eyes. He stared back at her steadily, firmly, and told her:

"Tonight we go to Ansar. That is all you need to think about. Tonight, we go to Ansar."

She nodded slowly, allowing the somewhat foolish sense of reassurance to flood through her mind and quiet every nagging, unanswered question. Every nagging, unanswered question...but one.

"But what about my brother?" she asked again.

He gave her a sad, quiet smile. Even in the dead of night, she could see that his eyes couldn't promise Rick's safety, or even the vain hope for it. He told her simply, "Pray."

The words twisted unsatisfied in her stomach, but she said nothing. She didn't challenge him. He started walking again, and she followed him, breathing an excited sigh when she noticed the huddled form of tents up ahead.

"Is that Ansar?" she whispered.

"Yes." Ardeth stopped suddenly again, and looked her steadily in the eye. "These people are friends of the Med-Jai, but we cannot risk their safety by telling them I am the son of the chieftain. So for as long as we are here, my name is Jamal, and I am just a simple soldier."

Hattie raised an eyebrow. "So who does that make me?"

"You are my wife...Elizabeth?" he said uncertainly. "That is an American name, isn't it?"

She laughed. "Yes."

He let out a little laugh as well. "Good."

They started walking again, and Hattie eyed him curiously. "So how did Jamal the simple soldier find himself an American wife?"

Ardeth chuckled low in his throat, the sound rumbling pleasantly in the cool night air. "It was love, of course."

She giggled, a smile stretching across her face. "Well, of_ course."_

"An impossible love," he said.

"Oh, yes," Hattie agreed playfully. "But he simply _couldn't_ refuse her."

Ardeth glanced at her, a little smirk in the corner of his mouth. "You mean she could not refuse _him,_ of course."

She pretended to be offended. "What do you mean, she couldn't refuse him? Of course she could. A woman can always refuse a man. And anyway, he's from the strict, backwards side of the world. He was probably tangled in an arranged marriage or something."

"It isn't so backwards," Ardeth said, much more serious than he'd been a moment ago. Hattie's stomach dropped in embarrassment, and she quickly tried to recant.

"Oh, no, I didn't mean - "

He let out a heavy sigh, and started walking a little faster. "I believe you _did_ mean it."

Hattie hurried to keep up with him. "I just meant, you know...it's strict. It's a strict world. Women aren't free to dress how they want or do what they want, and none of you drink - "

Ardeth balked. "Drink? What does drinking have to do with freedom?"

Hattie put her hands on her hips. "Well if you'll recall, it's what got Beni out of the room in the first place."

He let out a flustered sigh, his steps becoming even quicker now. She had to jog to keep up with him, the muscles in her legs protesting every moment of it.

"Listen, I'm sorry if I offended you. I didn't mean to," she said.

He shook his head. "It _is_ an impossible love. No one will ever believe Jamal and Elizabeth are married."

"I don't know," Hattie retorted. "If we show up bickering, they might."

Despite himself, Ardeth chuckled, his feet slowing down to a walk again, almost of their own accord. With a sigh, he offered her his hand, and she took it.

"You know," he said after a moment, "an obedient wife would have covered her hair."

Hattie touched the matted, river-soaked ends of her dark curls. "Who said Elizabeth had to be an obedient wife?"

He let out a little sigh. "I don't know. Probably her mother-in-law."

Hattie glanced up at him in surprise. "But not Jamal?"

He met her eyes seriously, and shook his head with a grave sort of somberness. "Never Jamal."

She frowned curiously, but didn't have a chance to ask him about that, because they arrived at the first tent in Ansar. Ardeth pulled back the covering of the tent and whispered inside. Hattie listened as he conversed in quiet Arabic with someone in the tent. A moment later, they were beckoned inside, and someone lit a fire.

The tent was occupied only by an older woman and her young son, a boy of probably eight years, who was sent out into the night. The woman talked politely with Ardeth, but eyed Hattie with a kind of suspicious disdain. She offered them bread and Hattie ate ravenously; she hadn't noticed how hungry she was until just now, and she could have probably eaten everything in the tent. But when she saw how carefully Ardeth only ate a little, and then took in the tent more astutely, she realized that the woman was probably very poor, and couldn't afford to give them much.

The boy returned with a big basin of water. The woman positioned it over the fire and sprinkled in spices and a splash of oil. She said something to Ardeth, and then ushered her son behind a curtain that cut the tent into two rooms. She said something that must have meant "good night," and went in behind him.

Hattie looked up at Ardeth, but he only nodded at the basin over the fire.

"That is for your bath. I will step outside."

Hattie's throat tightened, and before she knew what she was saying, she said, "Wait."

He looked at her curiously in the firelight.

"Stay," she told him quietly.

His jaw tightened, and his eyes filled with a strong, unreadable emotion - painful as conflict and longing.

"I can't," he said. "The temptation is too great."

She blinked, glancing at the basin to hide the twinge of embarrassment in her eyes.

"Please," she said quietly.

He let out a heavy sigh, his hands flexing at his sides. She felt his gaze traveling over her body, studying her face with an expression that seemed to pain him. He sucked in a sharp breath.

_"Please,"_ she said again, taking a few steps towards him.

The corner of his mouth twitched, but he did not move away from her. "This is not right. We should not...We _cannot_ do this."

He shook his head fervently, and turned away from her, striding out of the tent without another word. Hattie let out a sigh, feeling the sickness of regret creeping into her body. She blinked hard, her face grow hot with embarrassment.

What was wrong with her?

She tried to shake the feeling of cheapness away; the feeling that he didn't want her because he'd already deduced that she was less than chaste. Less than what he deserved, or at least less than what he'd been told his entire life he deserved. Anger began working its way through her veins now, throbbing hot and red between her eyes.

No, maybe she_ wasn't_ some perfect, lovely, virginal little Arab girl who covered her hair and face and turned her eyes down when she saw a man. Maybe she wasn't like that at all. Maybe she was from a world where women voted and drank and cut their hair and smoked cigarettes because they_ could_, because they were liberated and free and no man was going to tell them no. Not anymore.

But he wasn't better than her. He wasn't better, and if what he thought he deserved - what he thought he was entitled to by the coincidential birthright of being a man - was a subservient, opinionless ghost of a woman, well...well then_ he_ didn't deserve _her._

She huffed a sigh, flinging her sticky, scummy dress from her body and peeling her shoes from her feet. She snapped open her garters ferociously, tugging her stockings away with such impatience that she snagged a nail and ripped a run clean down the back of the hose. She balled it up in her hand and flung it on the ground. She didn't need it, anyway. This was Egypt. It was damned hot and nobody could tell her she had to wear stockings, anyway.

She yanked the other one off with equal disdain, casting it defiantly at the tent flap that Ardeth had retreated through just a moment ago. To her startlement, the tent flap opened just then, and the stocking went sailing outside. She gasped in surprise as Ardeth stepped back inside, meeting her wide eyes with a burning expression in his.

"Hattie," he said in a frought, husky tone, his throat jerking nervously as his gaze slipped away from her eyes and down her body. Her palms were sweating from self-consciousness until at last his eyes traveled back to hers, painful and urgent like an open wound.

"What?" she breathed only a moment before he closed the distance between them and took her in a tight, powerful embrace. His lips took hers in a kiss that burned, and she gave herself over to the intensity of his every desirous touch.

He pulled her to the floor and made love to her, whispering sweet, mysterious things in Arabic. She twisted her fingers tightly in his hair, and held him close like no man before. Everything inside her rushed in a new and terrifying way, and she wanted nothing more to be lost forever to him and to this feeling. She wanted nothing more...

When at last they parted, and he reluctantly rolled away from her, she curled close to him, and he held her. For a while the only sounds in the room were their laboring breaths and the crackling fire and the water in the basin, now feverishly boiling.

"You're an enchantress. You've bewitched me," Ardeth whispered, pressing a kiss on top of her head. "What is there left for me?"

She sat up a little, looking at his face curiously. "You have me."

He nodded his head, but didn't say anything. Reluctantly, she laid her head on his chest again. Hattie closed her eyes, wrapping her arm tighter about his waist and trying to force out his troubling words. _What is there left for me?_


	13. About Last Night

_**Author's Note. **So, it's been a while, and I kind of owe you. Sorry it's taken so long!_

* * *

**About Last Night**

Hattie awoke to a strange and dreadful feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she wasn't sure why.

When she opened her eyes, she saw (and quickly remembered) that she was in the tent of an Arab widow and her son, and that Ardeth was there with her. The woman was cooking. Ardeth was drinking coffee and had traded in his traditional black Med-Jai garments for drab, brown robes. Hattie watched the woman bring him a little bowl of something that looked like mud, and he began smearing it over the tattoos on his hands and face.

He suddenly noticed her watching him, and glanced up.

"Good morning," she said.

He gave her a smile that didn't quite make it to his eyes.

"You had better eat," he said. "It is a long walk to Adil."

Hattie's brow furrowed in curiosity. "Adil?"

Ardeth nodded. "Unless they intend to sail another fifty miles down river, it is the trading post they will stop at this afternoon."

But Hattie felt even more confused. She ran her hand through her hair. "But why are we going there? We just ran away from them..."

He breathed a sigh, giving a nod at the warm hummus and bread the woman had set out on a rug on the floor.

"If they keep their word to your brother, that is where he will be left."

"Oh." Hattie felt vaguely stupid, forgetting about Rick just then. She supposed survival had been the primary thing on her mind at the moment, but she felt guilty just the same.

They ate in silence under the suspicious eye of the woman; occasionally she and Ardeth would exchange hushed small talk that Hattie couldn't hear, and couldn't even begin to translate. She was useless at Arabic except for the very basics, try though she may.

The woman's son inched close to her, and stared at her curiously. She looked back at him, and she realized he was studying her blue eyes with a sweet, inquisitive frown. She gave him a smile, and he smiled back.

When they finished eating, Ardeth said something about the late hour of morning, and Hattie nodded her head. She gave the woman an awkward "thank you" in Arabic, and stepped back as Ardeth took the woman by her aging, wrinkled hands and kissed them. He looked into her eyes and said something kindly and sincerely that made her smile. Then they left.

Hattie almost had to jog to keep up with Ardeth's long, determined strides. Her clothes were dry now, but her shoes still squished against her feet, and she supposed they were ruined for good no thanks to her impromtu swim last night. She gasped to herself in a peculiar sort of way; goodness, had all that really only happened last night? It felt like ages ago.

"So after we get my brother," Hattie began once she grew accustomed to their fast-paced travel, "what are we going to do?"

Ardeth cleared his throat. "You and your brother must return to Cairo. I will go back to my people."

"What?"

Hattie stopped. He continued walking for a few paces before realizing she wasn't beside him anymore. He breathed a sigh, and reluctantly slowed to a stop as well. He straightened his shoulders and didn't turn around to look at her.

"It is for the best," he said firmly.

Her eyes narrowed at his back, and she crossed her arms over her chest. "And I suppose we just...never see each other again?"

His shoulders slumped a little, and he glanced down.

"It is for the best," he said again, though his tone was more weary this time.

Hattie shook her head. Suddenly that feeling of dread in her stomach made sense. She clenched her teeth against the unwanted mixture of foolishness and anger that attempted to take her hostage. She stood there in a dirt road and glared at a man's back, her heart beating faster by the moment.

"I have been the only person on your side," she threw at him like a rock.

She watched his body heave a sigh, and slowly turn around to face her. She saw something like hurt in his dark eyes, but she didn't care just then.

"Hattie..." he said quietly.

"You," she said, her finger rising in accusation. _"You_ came back into the tent - "

"I should not have."

She shook her head in disbelief. Huffing a sigh, she started walking again, brushing past him briskly.

"Okay," she said bitterly. "I understand. You don't have to pretend to be a gentleman about it."

She heard his steps hurrying behind her. "I am not pretending anything."

"Stop," she threw over her shoulder.

He caught up to her and took her by the elbow, gently pulling her to a stop. She whirled around and collided into his persistent gaze.

"What?" she demanded.

Ardeth stared into her eyes seriously for a moment. His grip relaxed on her arm, and he told her quietly:

"Hattie...I am a betrothed man."

Her eyebrows rose. "You're what?"

"Betrothed."

She shook her head again, jerking her arm from his hand. His painful and guilty eyes beseeched her.

"Forgive me," he said desperately. "I have made a terrible mistake."

Hattie stared at him for a moment, her eyes hard and scrutinizing. "If you're betrothed, I'm not the one you need to be apologizing to," she said evenly.

His throat jerked with an awkward and uncomfortable swallow, and he nodded his head. He stared down at the dirt road steadily, his fingers moving anxiously at his sides. After a moment, he looked up at her with a blank (but vaguely embarrassed) expression.

"Then you agree this is for the best."

Hattie gave him a stiff shrug, and started walking again. She heard him take a deep breath, and follow after her.

"I could probably find my own way to this Adil place," she told him after a moment.

Ardeth shook his head.

"You never know who you will encounter on this road," he said. "Besides, I am on my way to Adil myself."

"Oh, are you?" she said incredulously.

"Yes," he said. "I will need a horse...or at least a camel...to journey into the desert."

Hattie let out a little snort, and hurried to stay a step or two ahead of him. But Ardeth's legs were longer, and he walked toe-to-toe with her, the two of them striding along in silence and in the heat.

Hattie tried to focus on thoughts of her brother in an effort to distract herself from her dreadful foolishness, but..._Betrothed._ He was betrothed. And for all of the things she had felt the night before, she was nothing but an embarrassing memory to him; a blot of guilt before the woman he was supposed to marry. She let out a dismal sigh. She was so angry...so angry with him. Why didn't he mention this betrothal last night? She never would have slept with him if she had known...

"What's her name?" she found herself blurting before she could hold the words back.

He sucked in a surprised breath. "Oh. Um, Fatima."

Hattie nodded her head. "Did you get to choose her, or were you...you know, arranged together at birth or something of the sort?"

She heard him breathe a little scoff in his throat, and even though she didn't want to, she glanced at him briefly out of the corner of her eye.

"I chose her."

Hattie tried to veil a surprised expression. She nodded her head and they walked on in silence for a little longer. She felt the words waiting on her tongue, longing to be asked. She felt them, but she bit them back for a moment...before deciding it didn't matter, anyway. He never wanted to see her again. He had said as much.

"Do you love her?" Hattie asked.

Ardeth's steps faltered, and he almost stopped. But he quickly regained himself and continued on at an even faster pace.

"She is a good woman," he said after a moment, his voice tense and brittle.

Hattie frowned. She stared at him now, and he refused to look over at her, his jaw set and determined and his eyes wearing a dark expression that seemed angry.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

He let out a gruff sigh and kept walking.

"That is not the only reason to get married," he told her pointedly.

Her brow furrowed up in confusion. "Okay - "

"Fatima is a fine woman. She is the eldest daughter of Abd-al-Rashid, chieftain of the Hamza Med-Jai tribe."

Hattie nodded her head, her face still utterly befuddled.

"She sounds marvelous," she said flatly. "But all I asked was if you loved her."

Ardeth flexed his jaw, and stared hard at the horizon.

"There is no reason not to," he said in a sharp tone.

Hattie nodded again. "Well. Congratulations."

She didn't bother trying to sound genuine; she was far from pleased to hear that Ardeth was going to get married. She had no patience for the sort of men who casually forgot to mention their fiancees and girlfriends, and even less patience for the men who hid their wedding rings in a back pocket while they went out dancing. Hattie hadn't thought Ardeth was a man like that...but she supposed she hardly knew him at all, and anyway, here they were - the morning after a night that had seemed surreal and lovely at the time, spoiled by daylight and this pesky business of another woman.

"Regardless, it does not matter if I love her," Ardeth said suddenly, his voice strangely cold and melancholy in the bright sun. "I gave her my word."

Hattie sighed.

"And I apologize," he added after a moment, "for last night. It was unfair to take advantage of...ragged emotions."

Hattie fought the urge to roll her eyes, and scoffed. She glanced at him with incredulous eyes. "Ragged emotions? Is that what it was?"

Ardeth pressed his lips into a thin line. He looked away from her gaze and pretended to focus on the road ahead of them.

"Perhaps," he said slowly, "it would be best if we leave last night where it was."

Hattie's expression didn't change, but she nodded her head. The two of them walked in silence the rest of the way to Adil, a dusty, bustling little post crowded with an odd assortment of natives and tourists; camels and automobiles; beggars and conmen and desert guides and outfitters. Hattie smelled the stink of river water and sweating bodies as they made their way closer to the docks. Curiously, she stood up on her toes and caught sight of a barge chugging on into the dock. She squinted at the name on the side, and quickly turned to Ardeth beside her.

"That's them, isn't it? _The Sudan?"_

Ardeth nodded his head.

"What should we do?"

"Wait," he told her quietly. Hattie lowered back down to stand flat-footed, and strained through flashes of space in the crowd to see what was going on. It felt like an eternity before the barge docked and people started filing off. She sucked in a breath and held it, her eyes fastened on the tourists and strange, red-clad men. She caught an orange-y glimmer of Campbell Wily's hair, and the sheen of Mr. Burns's glasses in the sun. She vised off the sun with her hand and squinted hard. She saw Meela and Lock-Nah, tall and proud, and then she saw Beni scurrying behind them. She glared at that stupid red fez, until the face beneath it turned towards her. Before she could think to look down, her gaze ran headlong into his. She saw his eyes widen, and she whirled around to Ardeth.

"Beni saw me," she breathed.

Ardeth frowned. "Just now?"

"Yes."

"Come on."

He took her by the hand and pulled her deeper into the crowd, away from the docks. He was about to take a sharp turn into an alleyway when a gunshot rang out high above the bustle of the port, and somebody let out a scream.

_"ARDETH BAY!"_ Lock-Nah's voice bellowed in the moment of surprised silence.

Hattie turned and looked at Ardeth with wide, urgent eyes.

"You need to leave," she told him.

He shook his head. "They could kill you."

Hattie blinked. "Not if they think I know where you are."

Ardeth glanced back in the direction of the docks, a conflicted expression flickering in his eyes for a brief moment before he shook his head firmly again.

"Ardeth," she said quickly, "they already know I'm here."

He stared back at her for another moment. She could hear the footsteps, and the shuffles through the crowds. Lock-Nah and his men were coming. She stared back at him fiercely.

"Go," she told him.

He gave a small, quick nod, and glanced back towards the docks. His eyes flitted to hers, and before she could blink, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard on her lips. Hattie gasped back a breath, staring back at him in wide-eyed shock when they parted.

"I will come for you," he told her. "Alright?"

She nodded her head, her lips trembling from surprise and the thrill of his kiss and the dooming trepidation of heart. His eyes were burning and determined, gazing with a severity that demanded she believe him, no matter what the cost.

_I will come back for you._

But neither of them knew what was about to happen. At best, Meela's men would let her and her brother go as agreed on the boat...but Hattie doubted that was an option now.

Hattie blinked, and Ardeth disappeared down the alleyway. A moment later, she could feel dozens, hundreds of eyes all staring at her in curiosity or grim urgency. She sucked in a deep breath, and turned around, meeting Lock-Nah in the eye.


	14. En Route

_**Author's Note. **Once again, it's been forever, and I apologize. Next chapter!_

* * *

**En Route**

"Let's take a moment and consider our options, shall we?"

Hattie stared persistently at her feet, terrified of looking up at the two people squabbling over her life. Three different times, Lock-Nah had brought the deathly sharp edge of a scimitar to her neck and dared Ardeth to let her die. Three seperate times, he'd failed to appear, and Lock-Nah had released her for a few minutes of false relief. The fourth time he tried, Meela was tired of the antics, and told him boredly that Ardeth had clearly fled, he was wasting time, and they had bigger things to worry about.

Lock-Nah had grumbled something irritably, but Hattie still thought he took orders from a woman surprisingly well. He didn't seem like the type to entertain the notion at all, but Meela was clearly the one in charge here.

Hattie hadn't seen her brother.

She knew if Rick was free, he'd be here; the contract with Meela terminated, he'd certainly rescue her right now, guns blazing. There was no stopping Rick O'Connell, she knew that. She knew that. But she refused to believe that he was dead, just because he wasn't here. _They still have him hostage,_ she told herself. _He's still a prisoner. He has to be. He _has_ to be._

She took a deep breath and blinked away the tears that threatened to stream down her cheeks. _He's not dead_, she told herself over and over again. _He's not. Stop thinking it. He's not. He's. Not..._

"Ardeth Bay is gone," Meela said in her ever-serene voice. "He's likely on his way to gather his tribe."

Hattie could feel those black, feline eyes on her, and winced. Against her better judgment, she looked into Meela's gaze and got trapped in their darkness.

"But there is a reason you went with him," she said softly. "A reason that I doubt you would share out here in the marketplace."

Hattie shook her head numbly. "There's no reason - "

The corner of Meela's mouth tugged in a thin, cruel smirk. "Yes, that's what I thought you'd say."

She turned her attention back to Lock-Nah. "We'll handle this when we camp tonight. For now, just...put her in the dynamite cart."

Hattie's eyes widened, but she didn't have a chance to protest before being dragged off roughly by two men and hauled over to a large, stinking gathering of horses, camels and carts. Again she found herself tied up with her hands behind her back - only this time, they'd taken the precaution to tie her ankles as well. She grimaced against their hard hands as she was thrown gruffly into the cart, and gasped when her body connected with its hard, wooden bed.

Taking a deep breath, she worked on maneuvering herself into a somewhat comfortable position. It wasn't until she'd managed to sit up that she noticed she wasn't alone.

"Rick?"

Her brother looked up from the floor of the cart and blinked. His eyes widened with sadness and relief, a weary smile spreading across his face.

"Hattie," he breathed. "Thank God you're alright."

She smiled, too. "Thank God _you're_ alright."

Rick let out a little snort, flexing his shoulders against the unforgiving beam he was leaning against. "Hey, I'm fine."

Hattie sighed, her stomach twisting with guilt. "This is all my fault. I never should have dragged you into this..."

His brow furrowed. "Into what? I don't even know what's going on anymore. One minute they're supposed to let us off at the port, the next minute I hear you and that - desert guy escaped and plans have changed."

"Plans stayed the same for some of us," another voice said. Hattie startled, her eyes searching the dim cart for the source of that familiar Southern drawl. Her gaze suddenly caught a glimpse of Campbell's bright hair in a sliver of sunlight.

"Campbell?"

"The one and only."

Hattie frowned in confusion. "But what are you doing here?"

She let out a long sigh, and at last looked up. Hattie caught the sheen of her glass eye as she looked up and cracked her neck.

"Well, darlin', it _seems_ that ya'll's friend Ms. Nais don't take so kindly to the competition. So they paid off Mr. Daniels and his friends, and the Carnahans, and they're draggin' us along so's they don't get any ideas about comin' out anyways."

Hattie raised her eyebrows. "Really? All the way out there?"

Campbell shrugged. "Hell if I know. All the way out there, part the way out there - regardless, we're stuck here 'til Meela says otherwise. She got no intention 'a sharin' that city with anybody else. And she never had. So I reckon I'm much obliged, 'cause if you hadn't done a fool thing like run off with that turban-headed what's-his-name, I'd be stuck here with Beni 'stead 'a your charmin' brother."

Rick let out a short, humorless laugh.

"Miss Evelyn was none too pleased about it, though."

Rick scoffed, "You can say that again."

Hattie sighed. Somehow hearing about Evelyn's disappointment made her feel even more guilty. She didn't know what to think, though. She knew there was something very suspicious about Meela's interest in Hamunaptra. And she believed Ardeth, even though the whole notion of bringing a mummy back to life was silly at best. She believed him; because even if it was just superstition, Meela was clearly a dangerous woman bent on dangerous things. And she needed to be stopped.

"So did Meela have to pay her more or something?" Hattie asked, not particularly interested.

Campbell shrugged. "That I don't know. I just know she put up a fight."

"Well, she's got that...box thing," Rick said. "I don't know what her whole thing was about it, but she thought it was important..."

"You mean the one you took from Hamunaptra?" Hattie asked.

Rick nodded.

"What was that thing, anyway?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I just saw it and picked it up. She tried to tell me about it, but I didn't really get what she was saying...something about it being a puzzle...or something."

Hattie let out a little incredulous laugh and gave him a teasing wink. "Maybe if you'd been paying a little less attention to how cute she was, you might have known what she was saying."

Rick raised his eyebrows. "Really? _You're_ going to give me a hard time about that? The lady who jumped into a river with Mr. Curses and Ancient Voodoo?"

Hattie's eyes quickly fled to the floor, and she was grateful the darkness of the cart hid her flushed face. She chewed on her lip thoughtfully.

"It wasn't_ just_ because I thought he was handsome, you know," she mumbled after a minute.

Campbell snorted. "Well it don't make a damn difference what fool reason you went and done it for now."

Hattie glanced up and caughter the other woman's off-balance, emerald gaze.

"Three of us are in this mess and I'm out about four hundred greenbacks for it," she said bitterly.

Hattie sighed. "I'm sorry."

Campbell shrugged and told her pointedly, "I think I already said I was in this mess whether you done it or not."

Hattie nodded her head silently; even though Campbell was probably right, she couldn't stop the cold grip of guilt from taking hold of her. She couldn't shake the idea that all of this could have been avoided if she'd done something differently. If she'd convinced Rick to take the Carnahans to Hamunaptra, none of this would be happening. They'd be having a perfectly pleasant time on their way to Hamunaptra...

Maybe.

Or maybe they'd all be dead at the bottom of the Nile, no thanks to the Med-Jai attack. Even if they _had_ survived, they probably would have suffered more attacks, since Ardeth claimed they were looking for some special key.

He'd be the enemy instead of her only ally.

What an odd thought. She sat there contemplating the idea, trying to decide if that was better or worse than the situation she was in right now. She certainly wouldn't be dealing with this mess, and she never would have learned his name - much less slept with him. Now she was stuck dealing with the repercussions of that, as well as the confusing moment at the docks when he'd suddenly, urgently kissed her.

Why had he done that?

Why _would_ he do that? Was it because he didn't think she'd survive? Because he thought he'd never see her again, and he couldn't help romanticizing the moment?

_I will come back for you_, he'd told her. _I will come back for you...Alright? _As if he was desperate for her to believe him, to understand. He was making a promise. But what good was his promise now? He'd left; he'd _had_ to leave, and she'd insisted on it. But now she was here, dreading the unpleasant moment when they camped for the night and Meela set to the task of discovering the "reason" she'd gone with Ardeth.

She didn't know what to do with that. She didn't know what kind of information they were looking for, or what she might say that could be incriminating or protecting. Surely Meela already knew that the Med-Jai were aware of her plan to resurrect the mummy. Her men were the descendants of those priests, after all. That was the reason she went with Ardeth. What use could Meela have for that?

The cart lurched all the sudden. Apparently, the caravan was on the move. Hattie's heart sank.

What did Meela think, then? That she and Ardeth had planned something? Or that she was somehow valuable to him, and they could use her to trap him? Wasn't the fact that he left her there proof enough that she wasn't that kind of "valuable"?

Regardless, Hattie had nothing to offer. But she didn't know how convince Meela of that.

"Bet it really gets your goat, Beni makin' off with your dough like this," Campbell said suddenly.

Rick let out a sigh. "Yeah, well...Right now I'm just happy my sister and I are alive."

Campbell eyed him incredulously. "Awful lot 'a dough..."

"He can have it," Rick threw back, his voice impatient and pointed. "That broad's nuts."

"Slippery little bastard," she said, more to herself than to the O'Connells.

Hattie frowned. "What's your thing with him, anyway?"

Campbell's eyes narrowed for a moment, a suspicious look on her face. She looked Hattie over and demanded, "What's it to you?"

Hattie raised her eyebrows. "Seriously? I was only wondering..."

"I'll bet you were."

Hattie rolled her eyes. "Oh,_ please,_ I was _not_ sleeping with him."

Campbell scoffed. Hattie tried to cross her arms before remembering they were secured behind her. She fidgeted back into her previous position and stared hard at Campbell.

"What are you so jealous about, anyway?" Hattie asked impatiently. "Not only is he just..._completely_ revolting, you told me earlier you found 'something better.'"

Rick made a little noise in his throat, and when Hattie looked at him, she realized he was trying his damndest not to chuckle. Campbell shot him a glare, sticking her nose in the air with a sniff.

"You wouldn't think he was so revolting if you'd been in bed with him."

"Yikes," Rick muttered. Hattie couldn't fight a grimace.

"And for your information, I _did_ find somethin' better. But a gal has a right to be tiffed when her beau moves on lickety-splits like that, 'specially when he owes ya sixty-five dollars and twenty-three cents for a glass eye he promised to buy."

Rick scoffed. "Yeah, you're never seeing a cent of that."

She met his eyes. "Oh, don't I know it, sugar. Don't_ I_ know it. But see, I bought it on credit, and now that Meela made Miss Evelyn give me the boot, I ain't good for it."

"Them's the breaks," Rick sighed.

Campbell nodded. "I'm gonna try to hit him up for it 'fore we head back, but I ain't holdin' my breath on it."

Rick shrugged his shoulders, and let a quiet fall over them briefly before turning his attention to his sister. Hattie wasn't one to miss the note of worry in his gaze.

"So what's the whole deal with you?"

Hattie glanced down at her feet.

"What do you mean?" she mumbled as innocently as she could manage.

She could feel her brother's eyes widen in disbelief.

"Come on, Hattie. You escape with that guy, you wind up here, you get caught, now we're all headed to Hamunaptra - or...part-way to Hamunaptra. What's the deal?"

Hattie pressed her lips together and shook her head.

"It's a mess," she said at last. "It's all a big mess."


	15. Loose Lips Sink Ships

_**Author's Note. **And since I totally owe you, next chapter also._

* * *

**Loose Lips Sink Ships**

When at last the cart had bumped to a halt, Hattie couldn't help heaving a sigh of relief despite her dreadful impending rendevous with Meela. Her body ached from sitting on the hard cart bed all day; her jaws were sore from clenching her teeth together against the rattle of the wheels. Night had fallen, and for what had felt like hours, they'd rode along in utter blackness. Hattie could no longer see her brother across from her, or Campbell at the other end of the cart. She'd tried to sleep but couldn't get comfortable. She suspected they hadn't slept, either, but a strained silence had overtaken them between the boredom and heat.

Suddenly the flap of the cart was pulled open, and the blaze of a torch greeted them for a moment of blinding light. Hattie squinted at the anonymous face of one of Meela's men, and sucked in a bracing breath when he reached in and dragged her out. She was vaguely aware of her brother demanding where they were taking her. No one answered him.

The guard took hold of her ankles and sliced through the ropes around them in one quick, careless swoop of his knife. She gasped, her legs trembling at his near-miss with her limbs. She glared up at him in the darkness, but he wasn't even looking at her. He jerked her roughly to her feet and forced her towards a large tent, the lights inside glowing faintly against the dunes in the darkness.

Hattie took a deep breath, reluctantly keeping up with the guard's hurried gait. Much too soon, she was shoved into the tent. She stumbled to keep her balance with her arms still tied behind her back, and miraculously managed to keep from falling. Her gaze collided headlong with Meela, preoccupied at a table with an ancient scroll of papyrus. Lock-Nah stood beside her, staring intently over her shoulder. In the corner, Beni lounged in a chair with a cigarette. He met her eyes and smirked. She glared back.

"I'll be with you in just a moment," Meela said coolly without looking up.

"It's in the Statue of Horus. Everyone knows this," Lock-Nah whispered impatiently.

Meela's eyebrows jerked up her forehead. "I am only saying it does not make sense, and it does not fit with my visions."

Lock-Nah let out a disgruntled sigh. She shot him a glare.

"The gold book with Horus, the black book with Anubis. _That's_ what makes sense."

Hattie let out a sigh, her eyes wandering around the tent absentmindedly. Despite the fact that they were only staying the night, and were surely anticipating a Med-Jai attack, the tent was strangely well-furnished. She caught sight of the soft, full-sized mattress on a short frame above the floor and let out a wistful sigh. Her body ached for a soft place to sleep, but she was fairly certain she'd be spending the night where she'd spent the day: in that awful cart.

Beni must have noticed the dismal, envious look on her face, because he sneered, "How was your ride in?"

She shot him a glare, and he snickered.

"There is always room on my camel, '_my love.'"_

Hattie's eyes narrowed. "I'd rather walk."

He gave her a grim smile. "That can be arranged."

She let out a sigh, turning her attention back to Meela and Lock-Nah. Beni didn't scare her. He was nothing but a pawn; he was probably the only one who couldn't see that. He had no power at all, and Hattie wasn't going to waste her time fretting over his hollow threats. Not when Meela was presenting her with some very real ones.

At last Meela sighed and gave Lock-Nah an exasperated look. She said something in a hushed language - probably Arabic - that made Beni chuckle. Lock-Nah shot him a warning look, and Beni quickly gulped back his amusement, fidgeting in his seat. Meela looked like she was fighting the urge to roll her eyes, and turned her flashing gaze to Hattie.

"If it isn't our little escape artist," she said condescendingly. "I must admit, I'm a bit surprised we're having this conversation now and not...I don't know, five hours ago after an ill-attempted attack by your precious Med-Jai."

Hattie swallowed nervously, glancing away from her. "He's not 'my' Med-Jai..."

"And yet there's a widow in Ansar who, with a little creative prodding, could quite vividly recall a visit from a Med-Jai warrior and his blue-eyed wife."

Hattie's gaze quickly fled to the floor, as if she might somehow hide her incriminating eye color at this point.

She knew she couldn't.

"She can even recall some rather marital activity going on in the next room," Meela said in a voice that smirked. Hattie's face flushed hot. She couldn't bear to look up. Meela almost laughed. "Which is really just...so very fascinating to me, because I have only ever heard tell of Ardeth Bay's nauseatingly clean reputation."

Hattie closed her eyes, trying to fight back her guilt and dread. What had she done? Her mind wandered back to that widow in Ansar, and winced. Despite her embarrassment, her gaze jerked up to Meela.

"What did you do to her?"

Meela stared back at her with bored, half-lidded eyes. "Actually, that's a question for my associate Lock-Nah here, because I didn't leave the ship. Nevertheless, the answer is nothing."

Hattie glared back at her suspciously. "Really? Nothing?"

"Please," the other woman said with a dismissive wave of her hand, "when a person has a child, merely the threat of harm opens the throat big and wide. Let that be a lesson."

Hattie scoffed and told her airily, "I actually don't threaten people for information."

Meela raised her eyebrows. "I meant about having children."

Hattie glanced down again.

"So," Meela continued smoothly. "Considering your rather beneficial relationship to the good Chieftain Bay, it appears I have no choice but to hang onto you."

Hattie's eyes widened, and she shook her head. "No, you don't understand - we're not - there's nothing...It was just a...a little fling is all. There's nothing between us. He's betrothed."

Meela bit back a scoff. "You don't think I know Ardeth Bay is betrothed?"

Hattie shifted her weight uncomfortably.

"It doesn't matter to me if the two of you are madly in love or if you were...I don't know...keeping warm to stay alive - "

Beni snickered.

"The whole of it is, you've gone and done something so damaging to his reputation, only blackmail can undo it."

Hattie's face fell. Meela smirked. "And as it happens, he has something I want. Which is unresisted access to Hamunaptra."

Hattie's eyes widened, and she shook her head. "But his men already know you're on your way...It's their whole job to guard the city. How would he ever cover a lie like that for you?"

Meela shrugged, her expression bored again. "That actually isn't my problem, is it?"

Hattie let out a bitter scoff, shooting a glare at Beni when he started chuckling again. She breathed a frustrated sigh and turned her gaze fiercely back to Meela.

"So is that what you brought me here for? To tell me how you're going to blackmail Ardeth Bay?"

A thin, cruel smile pulled at the other woman's lips, and she flicked her hair over her shoulder. "Actually no."

Something about the dark amusement in Meela's eyes made Hattie terribly nervous. But she refused to look away from her sardonic black gaze.

"There's this little matter of why Ardeth's men were on the boat in the first place," she said. "Now, it was my intention to let Lock-Nah work his charms and get the information, as they say, from the horse's mouth. But - as I expected - he proved to be a rather tough egg to crack, and then the two of you went and made the ill-informed choice to run off together."

Hattie's palms started to sweat; she could feel the threatening, impish eyes of Beni and Lock-Nah, and desperately wished she was still in that damned cart. Meela seemed to sense her nervousness, and she smiled her mean little smile.

"In all that time you spent together, I must assume that you know the real reason they attacked the barge."

Hattie swallowed nervously. Her head felt numb when she shook it; the blood pounded so loudly in her ears, she was sure her heart would explode.

"No," she said faintly. "I don't."

Meela breathed a little chuckle, and slinked out from around her table. She crossed the room over to Hattie, and reached a cool, slender hand up to her cheek. She narrowed her eyes and gazed hard into Hattie's face, and Hattie couldn't help but hold her breath.

"I don't believe you," Meela said quietly. She tilted her head back towards the table. "And Lock-Nah does not believe you."

Hattie's hands tightened into nervous fists behind her back. Meela's thumb brushed the corner of her mouth thoughtfully.

"Such a pretty face," she said. "It would be a dreadful shame to ruin it."

Hattie swallowed hard and tried to remain calm.

"You can tell me what they were looking for, or you can tell Lock-Nah. But I promise, I'm a much kinder person."

Hattie caught a glimpse of Lock-Nah out of the corner of her eye, fonding a knife between his hands. The blade glinted bright and sharp in the glow from the kerosene lamp, and she gasped. The words tumbled hurriedly out of her mouth:

"It was a key."

Meela blinked, a slight frown jerking the corner of her mouth. "What kind of key?"

Hattie's stomach churned uneasily; she was afraid to tell Meela the truth, but she had no choice. Everything was such a big mess...she'd jumped off of the boat with Ardeth, and everything had happened...it was all such a mess...and now Lock-Nah was holding a knife and Beni was leering at her and Meela was standing so very, very close, and -

"He said it could bring back...the Creature."

Meela's brow furrowed, and she took a step back from Hattie, turning to look at Lock-Nah in confusion. They stared at each other, as if they could communicate without words. Hattie gulped in a breath and tried to drown out the twisting feeling of dread in her stomach.

Meela whirled around to face her again, her eyes blazing and urgent.

"Who had the key?"

Hattie shook her head. "He never told me..."

"Who had it?" she demanded, for the first time raising her voice to something shrill and almost desperate.

"I don't know!" Hattie told her emphatically.

Meela's gaze darted back to Lock-Nah again. "It was one of the other explorers then."

"One of the Americans?" he wondered. They both turned expectantly to Beni.

"No," he told them. "I would have known about that."

Meela nodded quickly. "Then one of those British siblings."

She glanced at Lock-Nah, and he gave her one succinct little nod before striding out of the tent. Hattie sucked back a breath, turning her wide eyes desperately to Meela.

"He's not going to kill them, is he?"

Meela shrugged and sauntered back over to her table. "Lock-Nah handles things however he must handle them."

Hattie's heart sank, and she gazed at the tent flap with a dreadful sense of emergency. She didn't know Evelyn or Jonathan that well at all, but she did believe they were nice people...even if they weren't, they didn't deserve whatever Lock-Nah might deal them at the end of his sword. And she knew she couldn't handle another terrible thing going awry thanks to her actions. She had to get out and - and warn them somehow...she just had to. There had to be a way out of here. Wildly she looked about the tent, and her gaze landed on Beni.

God, _why_ Beni?

He met her eyes and sneered at her. "Ready to go back to your cart?"

She heaved a wistful sigh and gazed at him with her big eyes, and said, "Oh, I would do _anything_ to sleep somewhere else."

Beni scoffed. "Sure. And you are 'marvelous after a drink,' too. You will have to try with someone you have not played your games on yet."

Meela's brow furrowed, and she glanced up from her papyrus in feigned perplexity. "Are you two still here?"

They gaped at her, and her eyes narrowed in an impatient frown. Her sharp gaze flitted over to Beni. "Take her back to the cart."

"Why?" he whined.

"Because," she told him pointedly, "I'm sick of you lounging around in my tent."

He grumbled out a stream of Hungarian curses and took Hattie gruffly by the elbow, dragging her across the tent and out into the night. Clouds had taken a tight grip on the moon, and the camp seemed even darker than it had when Hattie had been brought here from the cart. His hand was tight on her arm, and her sore legs stumbled to keep up with his irritable trudge.

"Hey, easy," she snapped. "I'm aching everywhere."

Beni let out a wheezing scoff and rolled his eyes. "I don't care."

Hattie took a deep breath. "You know, I was serious about sleeping somewhere else."

He actually laughed aloud, giving her a rough shove that he must have hoped would make her trip, but she certainly couldn't fall with his fingers biting into her arm.

"Oh, _of course_ you were," he was finally able to manage.

She turned and stared at him pointedly. "I _am._ Do you know how awful riding in that cart was?"

"I don't know," he retorted. "But I do not think it would be much worse than taking a swim in the Nile and then having to hide out from Lock-Nah with Tattoo Face."

Hattie sighed. "He has a name, you know."

Beni snickered incredulously. "I think we_ all_ know you are the only one who cares what his name is."

Hattie's mouth twitched, and she didn't say anything. She could just faintly make out the outline of the cart up ahead of them in the darkness, and before she could stop herself, she let out a disgruntled groan. She could feel Beni's smirking eyes on her face.

"Well, there you are. I am going to go sleep in a_ warm_ tent, on a_ soft_ mattress, with _blankets_ and a _pillow _- "

"Shut up."

He exaggerated a sympathetic pout. "Oh, my poor darling!"

She chewed on the inside of her cheek, and watched him thoughtfully. "So you won't take me to your tent?"

He scoffed. "Not a chance."

She watched his eyes narrow, and he told her darkly, "Maybe if you had just waited for your stupid drink, you _could_ be sleeping in a bed tonight instead of a cart."

Hattie glanced dismally at the cart only once before a burst of defiance took hold of her. "I'd rather sleep in a cart every day for the rest of my life than spend one night in a bed with you!"

Beni glared at her, his mouth twisting with cruel thoughtfulness. "You know, you have a big mouth for someone with her hands tied behind her back."

She met his eyes evenly. "My hands were tied behind my back the last time I got away from you."

A mean smile lurked in the corner of his mouth. "Is that a challenge? Because you have nowhere to send me for a drink this time."

Hattie's mind raced for something to retort while Beni watched her with a look of unbearably smug satisfaction his face. She glanced at the cart again, and thought of her brother and Campbell trapped there...and then she thought of Lock-Nah racing off into the desert after Jonathan and Evelyn. Her stomach twisted with guilt and urgency and conflict.

She glanced at Beni's cruel, weaselly face in the darkness and sighed.

_Maybe_ she could manage to get away from Beni, though likely not before having to suffer through something she certainly didn't want to do with him. And if she did escape - then what? Where would she go? She had no idea where she was or how far the nearest _anything_ happened to be. She had no supplies and she couldn't risk trying to steal one of the horses or camels. The cart was guarded; there was almost no chance she could rescue Rick or Campbell. It would just be her. Her all by herself.

And they'd find her again.

She closed her eyes against the frustrated tears that wanted to overtake her. She wanted so, so desperately to escape. She couldn't bear the thought of the Carnahans' lives on the line - all because of her. She couldn't bear it.

But she couldn't be the girl jumping off of the barge again. Not this time.

If she was going to get away, she was going to have to be a little more thoughtful, a little more strategic. She couldn't just take a leap and hope the mess could be sorted out later.

It certainly hadn't worked the other day.

Her mouth twitched disdainfully, and at last she muttered in defeat, "Just take me back to the cart."

Beni let out a nerve-grating chuckle and dragged her the rest of the way to the cart and the waiting hands of the guards.


	16. Expect the Unexpected

_**Author's Note. **I know, I know. I've been muy neglectful of this story. I kind of got caught up with_ Amour Fou_, and then some plot bunnies of _Amour Fou_, and now it's like this whole thing (which is AMAZING, p.s.), but ya know, THIS STORY. This story should probably get some love, right? It's only been in the works for years. I'll try to focus on it a little more._

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**Expect the Unexpected**

Two hands grasped her arms in the darkness, and Hattie braced herself to be thrown into the cart again. But when she looked down at the hands, she noticed something rather peculiar about them. She bit back a gasp and searched desperately for the face of the man holding her, but he had the red shroud pulled over everything but his eyes. He raised a finger to the approximate position of his lips, and she nodded her head.

The man moved around behind her and cut the rope that secured her hands. She breathed a sigh of relief, bringing her shaking fingers up to push the hair out of her face. One of his hands, marked with those telltale tattoos, grasped around hers and led her silently, stealthily into the blanket of night.

A thousand questions blurred through Hattie's mind, but she didn't dare breathe a word of them. She wanted to ask him what he was doing here. She wanted to tell him that two people were in very grave danger, and all because of her. She wanted to apologize for telling Meela the things she'd had to tell her. And she wanted to beg him to go back to the cart, to go back for her brother and Campbell. But she knew even a whisper might betray them, and they were almost out of the camp.

She didn't breathe - she_ couldn't_ breathe - until they stole around a wide, ridged stretch of rock, several hundred feet from the encampment.

"Oh my God," she just barely managed, covering her mouth with her hand. She stopped in her tracks, desperate to regain control of her breath and her racing heart.

"It is alright," he said at last, pulling the red fabric away from his face. She felt a strange and calming flood of relief at hearing the sound of his voice. She glanced up, just barely finding his eyes in the darkness.

"You came back for me."

"I said that I would."

Hattie shook her head. "Ardeth...I just have so much to tell you...I don't think we have much time..."

He put his hand on her shoulder, staring back at her with his dark, earnest gaze. Something like sympathy marked his handsome face, and before she could stop herself, she wrapped her arms around his neck. She was both surprised and relieved to feel his arms, warm and sure around her body. His fingers caught in her hair, and he held her close. For a moment, she relaxed in his embrace.

But only for a moment. He was betrothed, and he'd made it more than evident that he didn't think they belonged together. Her body tensed, and she carefully stepped out of his arms.

"I'm sorry," she said, crossing her arms over her chest in the desert chill.

He was watching her with some unreadable emotion, but eventually glanced down at his feet and shook his head. "No. You have been through some truly terrible things."

Hattie glanced up and met his eyes. "What's going on?"

A smile almost crossed his lips. "Let me show you."

Her brow furrowed curiously, but she didn't ask him any further questions. Instead, she followed along beside him as he picked his way around the rock, eventually leading her around a short but steep ridge where a fire was crackling and a few tents were set up. Hattie squinted to see the figures huddled around the fire, and her jaw dropped.

"Rick?"

She rushed over to her brother, who looked up in surprise at hearing his name. Relief washed over his face, and he stood up to catch her in a warm hug.

"Hattie," he breathed. "I wanted to stay and wait for you, but what's-his-name over there said it would be better if he and his men stayed back."

She couldn't stop herself from grinning. "I'm just so glad you're with me this time."

"Reckon we're all more'n happy to be out 'a that damned cart," Campbell piped up from where she sat near the fire. Hattie's gaze jerked down to hers in surprise.

"Campbell?"

The mountain girl turned and cocked her head up at Hattie, staring up at her incredulously. "Now you don't think them fine desert gentlemen would leave me to rot out there, wouldja?"

Hattie sighed, not quite glancing back at Ardeth. "I guess I didn't know what to expect."

"Well, darling, let's put it this way. Best to expect the unexpected."

Hattie froze at the sound of that familiar, British-tinted voice. Her eyes searched wildly about the fire until she made sense of a certain lithe form clutching a gin bottle in one hand and a blanket about his shoulders in the other.

"Jonathan?"

"Yes," Jonathan said. "Believe me, I'd rather be enjoying this Tanqueray in the comfort of my own home, but your desert friend here convinced us we're in a world of trouble."

"You are," Ardeth said firmly.

Jonathan raised his eyebrows. "He's got a bloody dramatic way of putting things. Wouldn't dare turn him down." He took a swig from his bottle. "That and, well, whatever gets us a bit closer to Hamunaptra." He nodded at an empty stretch of sand next to him. "Come have a seat, darling. No one will have a drink with me."

Campbell let out a loud sigh._ "I_ was drinkin' with ya."

"Yes," Jonathan said, his hand flexing protectively on the neck of the bottle. "But you were gulping it down so fast, there wasn't any use in trying to share it with you. Come on now, Hattie. I can trust you to take ladylike sips, can't I?"

Hattie let out a quiet laugh, glancing back towards Ardeth reluctantly. She really _did_ need a drink, but she felt odd, flirting with Jonathan when Ardeth had just rescued her from Meela's camp.

"Why don't you sit by me instead," Rick told her, casting a warning look in Jonathan's direction. Hattie took the suggestion with relief, and sat down next to her brother by the fire.

"Is Evelyn here?" Hattie asked, if only to let Jonathan know that she wasn't trying to give him any cold shoulder. He glanced up from his bottle and nodded his head.

"Oh, yes. Can't keep the ol' girl out of the desert." He nodded back towards one of the tents. "She's gone to bed with a bugger of a headache. Not sure what the trouble is. Maybe the stress of the day."

Hattie nodded, unable to help the thirsty way she was eyeing his gin bottle. He noticed, and held it out towards her.

"Go on and have some, love. These Med-Jai fellows won't take any of it."

Hattie took the bottle from him gladly and knocked back a swallow. She didn't realize how hungry she was until the headiness of the alcohol prickled all down her neck. A wave of fuzzy lightness washed over her head for a second, but she liked it and took another sip.

"So what_ is_ the plan?" Hattie asked, reluctantly passing the bottle back to Jonathan.

Rick shrugged. "Tomorrow morning, we head back to Cairo."

Hattie frowned in confusion. "But what about Meela?"

He met her gaze incredulously. "What about her?"

Hattie started to say something, but had to sigh in defeat. She could tell what her brother was saying from his tone and posture. _This isn't our problem._ And...well...maybe it wasn't. She supposed it wasn't. Only...

"Are you sure it's safe for us to just...return to Cairo?"

Rick shrugged, glancing up at where Ardeth was still standing, a grim and unreadable expression on his face.

"It seems like these guys have a pretty good handle on the situation."

Hattie swallowed hard. She cast a plaintive glance up at Ardeth, chewing on her lip thoughtfully. The thought of telling her brother that Meela planned on using her as blackmail against Ardeth was mortifying. But she couldn't go back to Cairo. Not when Meela would likely send men after her. Ardeth met her eyes curiously.

"Could I talk to you for a second?"

He glanced back in the direction they had come, probably anticipating his men, before looking back to her again and slowly nodding his head. She could feel the puzzled eyes of everyone around the campfire, but she ignored them and got to her feet, striding purposefully to a secluded place in the darkness where no one could hear them. Ardeth struggled to keep up.

"What is it?"

Hattie ran her tongue over her lips, desperately hoping the night would cover her blushing cheeks. "Meela was planning on keeping me...so that you'd have to let her into Hamunaptra."

Ardeth's brow furrowed. "What?"

Hattie sighed. "She was going to use me as...well, leverage, I guess. She knows what we - she knows what happened...a few nights ago..."

Ardeth's eyebrows rose, and he barely managed a nervous swallow. He reached a hand up and scratched the back of his neck. "You cannot go back to Cairo, then. It is not safe."

"I know."

They both glanced around in the darkness awkwardly; anywhere but at each other. After another excruciating moment, Hattie glanced up, unable to keep a wince off of her face.

"What am I going to tell my brother?"

Ardeth's eyes widened; clearly, he wasn't too keen on the idea of confronting Rick O'Connell with this news, either. He sighed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"If the truth of this comes out, I am ruined. I will lose everything."

Hattie stared up at him helplessly. "So...?"

He shook his head. "We cannot tell anyone. Even your brother."

Hattie watched him, waiting in the darkness for his solution. He stared back at her, but his mind was obviously churning with thoughts.

"We have the key," he said carefully, thinking aloud. "Without the key, she cannot raise Imhotep."

He straightened his shoulders, looking into her eyes with a grave purpose, and talking to her rather than to himself. "We will organize an attack on her camp immediately. If we strike now, we can destroy them."

Hattie nodded. She didn't ask the question that was burning in the back of her mind.

_And then what?_

She supposed she knew the answer. Then she would go back to Cairo with her brother. Then he would marry Fatima. Then they would never see each other again. That's what was for the best. He was an earnest man, and he'd saved her just like he said he would. But she was still just a mistake to him. A mistake that had apparently turned out to be much bigger than either of them could imagine at the time.

She glanced up into his eyes and offered a sad (if forced) smile, but her breath caught in her throat just to meet his gaze. His eyes kindled with some emotion, something like longing, and it pained her to see him staring at her like that. She didn't want him to stare at her like that. _I'm a mistake,_ she reminded herself, _I'm just a simple mistake._ And he shouldn't look at her like she's anything more complicated than that. But God, his eyes...

He reached a hand towards her face, and she didn't turn away, even though she told herself to. His fingertips brushed her cheek, and he stared at her. She took a deep breath.

"Ardeth..."

She swallowed hard, and forced herself to glance away from him, back towards the campfire. She noticed a few figures in the firelight, and her brow furrowed curiously. What was going on over there...?

"Oh, no."


	17. Only Hope

_**Author's Note.** Admittedly, this story has at times been a challenge for me, but I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we're slowly but surely winding down. That should mean quick updates for you folks, so hooray!_

* * *

**Only Hope**

Ardeth followed Hattie's worried eyes over to the campfire, and let out a grim sigh. Without a word, he reached a hand into his scabbard and withdrew a long, gleaming scimitar before stalking back towards the camp. Not knowing what else to do, Hattie jogged along behind him, her heart pounding frantically in her chest. She stayed close behind him, though she didn't know how much protection he really offered. The camp was surrounded on all sides by a sea of men in red, all of whom had rifles raised. Rick and Jonathan and Campbell all stood with their hands up, and one of Meela's men was in the process of dragging Evelyn - kicking and screaming - out of her tent.

Hattie followed Ardeth's glare to a particular red-clad warrior with tattoos across his face and hands, a frightened and apologetic young Med-Jai who could only stare back at him helplessly.

Meela stood in the midst of it all, like she always did, cold and vaguely annoyed. She met Ardeth's eyes with a raise of her eyebrow.

"So sorry to be dropping by so late at night," she said. Her glare leveled at Ardeth, and her voice dropped all pretenses of amusement. "Here is the situation, Ardeth Bay. We have you. We have these fine, innocent people. We have your dear Miss O'Connell. And we have the key. As it happens, I am tired of dealing with all of you...except for the key, of course. I think I have given everyone here ample opportunity to leave with their lives. You have left me with no choice but to kill you."

Ardeth's hand tightened on his sword. He stared back at her, unblinking. "Your quarrel isn't with these people. Let them go."

Meela gazed back at him airily. "I _have_ let them go. And let them go. And let them go again. But somehow they all keep getting tangled up with you, and I am beginning to grow...suspicious?"

Hattie wanted to remind her that the only people she'd ever let go amongst them were the Carnahans, but she didn't think bringing up that point would have been too effective with Meela, anyway. She swallowed hard, and drew a little closer to Ardeth, meeting her brother's eyes in the firelight.

"Imhotep _will_ rise again," Meela said. "You cannot stop this."

"Listen," Rick said gruffly, pulling her attention away from Ardeth. "None of us believes in this rising from the dead shit. If you want to go do some...ancient religious thing at Hamunaptra, I'm not about to stop you. Just let my sister and I go."

Hattie stared at her brother desperately. "Rick, no..."

But Meela interrupted her. "Mr. O'Connell, your sister has caused more problems along the way to Hamunaptra than I could have possibly anticipated, so I am afraid I must respectfully refuse your request."

"Well what about my sister and me?" Jonathan piped in, shrugging away the dark glances Rick and Hattie gave him. "We don't believe in any of this poppycock, either. Why, the only reason we're even out here is because we were told your friend Mr. Lock-Nah was coming to steal our puzzle box and slice us up while he was at it." He glanced back at Evelyn for support. "Go on, Evy. Tell them all what a learned woman of science you are, not to be trusting in such silly notions..." His brow furrowed in something like puzzled concern. "Evy?"

Evelyn was gazing steadily at Meela, a proud and angry look on her face. Her shoulders were squared, and she had an almost regal quality to her posture. One that Hattie had never noticed her possessing before. The irritation on Meela's face slipped to a look of shock, and she stared back at Evelyn in confusion.

_"Nefertiri?"_

Hattie watched, perplexed, as the two women spoke rapidly to one another in a language she'd never heard before. She glanced at Ardeth questioningly, but he was too focused on their conversation, his mouth slightly open in amazement. She was about to ask him what was going on, when suddenly Evelyn stormed over to one of Meela's men and ripped the sword from his scabbard before he could think to put his rifle down and stop her.

"Um, Evy...?"

She ignored her brother, turning on Meela with the blade raised, a question in her flashing eyes. Meela watched her, and then an arrogant smile touched her lips. She pulled a long sword from her own scabbard, and stepped into position.

"Allah help us," Ardeth mumbled.

Hattie turned to him nervously. "What on earth is this?"

He shook his head, wincing when their blades made contact with a hiss. "Nefertiri was the daughter of the pharaoh. She witnessed her father's murder, and ensured Imhotep was cursed with the Hom-Dai."

Hattie swallowed hard. "Alright, but...what on earth is_ this?"_

Ardeth stared forward, perplexed. "I have my suspicions, but I dare not speak them aloud."

Meela's blade just barely caught Evelyn's arm, slicing her sleeve and opening a thin cut. Evelyn let out a little cry of pain and made a messy jab at Meela, but the other woman was too swift to suffer a hit.

"What do we do?" Hattie asked, staring up at Ardeth with wide, desperate eyes. His dark gaze flitted about the camp thoughtfully, calculating. She watched him, wishing there was something she could think of, some way they could stop this and still get out alive.

Meela meant to kill them all. She'd made that perfectly clear. Now was the perfect moment of escape, only...How could they leave Evelyn? She seemed to be holding her own surprisingly well against Meela, but they couldn't just abandon her here. What would happen when Meela grew tired of playing around with swords? Surely there was no way out for Evelyn now...

Hattie ran her tongue over her lips. She could leave now with her life.

She could. Right now.

She caught a glimpse of her brother, watching Evelyn's swordplay in bafflement. She thought about him seeking out Evelyn on the barge just to talk to her. She wondered if Rick would look over at her, and follow her lead if she slipped away. She wondered if any of Meela's men would stop him as he shouldered his way out. Hattie stood just outside the circle and no one had a hold of her. Now was the time, if she wanted to leave. Now was the time, before the group of them grew tired of watching Meela and happened to notice Hattie standing there free.

She glanced up at Ardeth and he met her eyes. She felt for a moment as if he could read her thoughts. He studied her face, and blinked.

"I know what to do, but I will need your help," he said softly.

Hattie's brow furrowed, but she watched him patiently.

"This ends tomorrow," he said, his voice tightening with determination. He leaned closer and told her in a swift, quiet voice: "They have the key. Nothing is stopping them. Even if Meela is killed tonight, they know they may resurrect her once they take her to Hamunaptra and find the books. But they are not at Hamunaptra yet, and without a guide, they do not know how to get there."

Hattie's eyes widened in realization. "Beni."

Ardeth gave her a succinct nod. His eyes flitted from hers for a brief moment over to the sword fight by the campfire. "I will end this. I know a way to negotiate the others' release."

Her mouth flinched in suspicion. "How?"

But he only waved his hand, impatient and dismissive. "Nevermind that." He reached his other hand into his cloak, and withdrew a gleaming revolver. Hattie gulped, not quite able to look away from the gun even though she could feel Ardeth's eyes persistent against his face. "Can you take care of Beni?"

"Oh," she breathed, her heart thudding wildly in her throat. Her palms were sweating, and the words - whatever they were - she wanted to say were caught somewhere in the blinding haze that was her mind right then. He wanted...he wanted her to...

"Please," he said urgently, jerking her gaze up to his. She stared up at him, confused and frightened by this task he was asking her to do. But his voice was very calm, and even soft. "It is all I can think of. And it will spare your brother's life."

Hattie glanced away, noticing Rick again. She watched the firelight playing across his face, and remembered all the adventures she used to imagine him being on. She remembered how she used to dream of all the heroic things he was doing, because that was Rick. He was a hero. He cared for people and he did what needed to be done. But Hattie wasn't so sure she was heroic like him. She wasn't sure she could do this...

"I wish you'd tell me your plan," she said, refusing to look at the gun.

Ardeth's throat jerked. "Hattie, there is no time."

Her glare flew to his angrily. "You want me to kill a man and not ask a single question?"

His eyes softened, and she saw his lips twitch empathetically. He sighed, and took her hand. "I want you to narrow their options. And I want you to go to the Med-Jai encampment and tell them to expect a battle in the morning."

Hattie shook her head. "How will I find that?"

"Due south of this very spot, two miles."

"But what if I get lost - "

"Hattie," he said firmly, giving her hand a squeeze. She looked up, and they stared at each other in a moment of tension. "You are all I have right now. You are the _only person_ I have."

She chewed her lip thoughtfully, staring at her brother to stave off the inklings of dread creeping into her stomach. At last she nodded her head, and turned back to Ardeth.

"Give me the gun."


	18. Compromising Positions

**Compromising Positions**

Hattie could barely focus as she stole away from the campfire. She tried to hold her breath, but it kept coming in ragged gulps, and she prayed that none of Meela's men heard her as she hurried out into the desert night. She was sure she could feel her heart thudding against her ribs, and the blood thumping in her ears was so loud that it drowned out everything. Everything except her breath. God, how could she be breathing so loud?

She sucked in the cold air in the vain attempt of clearing her head. She had to be calmer than this. She had to think straighter than this, only...

Well, only she'd never killed anyone before, of course. And she'd only fired a gun once before in her life, when she'd coaxed an adorable Australian tourist into showing her how. She hadn't even been paying attention to his lesson. His eyes were just so very green, and she'd wanted to get closer to him. That was all. He had the greenest eyes and the most darling accent, and he was so shy until he started talking about his gun...

Could she even do this?

As she jogged towards Meela's camp, hating every second that drew her closer, she felt sick. She felt queasy and lightheaded and so, so weak. She couldn't do this. How could Ardeth ask her to do this? She_ couldn't_ do this. Beni might have been a sniveling weasel who'd betrayed her, but she didn't want to kill him. She didn't want to kill anybody. And she didn't like being so clueless.

Why would Ardeth want her to kill Beni? What would that do?

_I want you to narrow their options, _he'd said. But - but Beni was a_ person._ He wasn't just an option, he was a person. Even if he was horrible in every regard, he hadn't done anything to warrant killing over. Not that Hattie was aware of.

The gun felt like a hundred pounds in her hand, and she clutched it with sweaty fingers, always afraid it would slip out of her grasp and go off. As she stumbled into the camp site, she tried desperately to steady herself. Here already. She was already here, and Beni didn't even know he only had minutes left to live.

Good God, she_ couldn't_ do this.

She couldn't, she couldn't, she couldn't.

"I can't do this," she whispered to herself, reaching her hand up to her head. Before she really knew what she was doing, she slipped to her seat on the ground. With trembling fingers, she put the gun on the sand next to her, relieved not to be holding it any longer.

_Narrow their options._

What did that mean? If Beni wasn't there, then he couldn't lead them to Hamunaptra. But why did she have to kill him? Couldn't she just...coax him out into the desert with her?

Hattie sucked in a breath, staring at the gun beside her. Her brow furrowed, and she felt a new determination welling up within her.

"That's what I'll do," she muttered. Ardeth hadn't told her his plan. And while she was willing (probably_ too_ willing) to put her faith in him, she couldn't just kill somebody. If he wanted her to narrow Meela's options, then she was going to do it in such a way that kept Beni alive. How could she ever live with herself if she was a murderer?

Just the same, she picked up the gun. It couldn't hurt to have some form of protection; who knew how many of Meela's men were still around here? She pulled herself to her feet, feeling more certain of her surroundings and breathing a little easier. But looking down her body, she frowned. Where was she supposed to put this gun? Her dress didn't have any pockets, and the gun would never fit down her neckline. She pulled up her skirt to see if she could wedge it under her garter, but the strap would never hold it in place. With a sigh, she decided she'd just have to hang onto it, and focused her attention on deciding which tent was Beni's.

She caught sight of Meela's tent again and sighed. There was another similar tent nearby, and the rest surrounding it were much less luxurious-looking, even from the outside. She pressed her lips together thoughtfully. Beni had made it sound like he had a nice tent all to himself, but Beni wasn't the most honest man. That tent next to Meela's might have been Lock-Nah's; though so far, the two of them tended to share living spaces.

Awfully peculiar for a woman who was trying to raise some undead lover from ancient Egypt.

But anyway, her best bet was that tent. If Beni wasn't there, she was going to have to take her chances in the others, which assumedly housed Meela's men. Hattie's hand tightened instinctively on the gun, and she crept to the entrance of the tent.

It was so dark out.

Her heart started pounding again as she reached a hand into the tent and quietly unpegged the flap. She took a breath and held it as she slipped so cautiously inside.

It was even darker in the tent than it was outside, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Besides a remarkable bed, there was really nothing inside. She could hear the soft, rhythmic breathing of someone asleep on the bed, and had to remind herself that Lock-Nah had left hours ago in search of Evelyn, Jonathan, and the key.

It had to be Beni.

She tiptoed over to the bed and stood there for a moment, staring down at the slight, sleeping form. She didn't know what to do.

She stood there uncertainly, shifting her weight and wracking her mind for the right course of action. Should she wake him? Well, of course she should. The only reason not to wake him would be if she was going to kill him. She had the gun in her hand, and he was sleeping, and she _could_ kill him...

But she _wasn't_ going to kill him. She wasn't. She didn't want to, and she couldn't do it. She knew she couldn't.

Hattie sucked in a breath, and sat down on the edge of the bed next to him. She reached a hand over to his shoulder, but before she could even lay a finger on him, his eyes snapped open and she let out a cry of surprise. The noise was muffled in her throat, though, because almost as soon as she'd opened her mouth, he clapped his hand over her lips and yanked her onto her back. In only a few stealthy moves, he had her trapped, perched on her chest with her arms pinned over her head. She was so confused and disoriented in the blackness of the tent; she didn't even notice until much too late that he was prying the gun out of her hand.

Even in the darkness, she could see his cruel, leering smirk.

"Don't move," he told her through his teeth, and leveled the gun between her eyes. Hattie bit back a gasp and nodded her head, paralyzed with fear. She watched him reach over and turn on a kerosene lamp. The whole tent filled with its sickly, yellow glow. Her eyes flitted to the tent flap desperately, but she knew she was trapped. No one would be coming to her rescue, not this time.

It was just her, and him, kneeling there on top of her in a pair of threadbare black trousers (suspenders hanging limp at his sides) and half a dozen religious charms. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette, and dangled it down the bulb of the kerosene lamp to light it.

"So," he said casually, taking the first drag. "What brings you here?"

Hattie breathed a nervous little smile. "I - well - it's a funny story - "

Beni held up the gun, his face set in a grim expression. "Oh, yes? It looks to me like it has one hell of a punch line."

Hattie gulped, a cold sweat descending over her whole body. She couldn't look away from the barrel of the gun.

"Why don't you start talking," he suggested, pulling back the hammer. He brought the cigarette up to his lips again and blew a train of smoke into her face. "And for the sake of time, you may skip the part where you pretend like you're dying to screw me."

Hattie breathed a shaking sigh, and forced herself to look up at him. "I didn't come here to kill you - "

Beni laughed.

"I know what it looks like, but I didn't."

Beni bit back a smirk, looking over the gun in mock fascination, as if he'd never seen one before. "You know, that is _very_ convincing, because I did not think it looked like you were here to kill me."

Hattie's face became pale.

"Rob me, yes," he said, taking another drag from his cigarette. "Kill me, no. You are not the killing type, my dear."

"Exactly," she said in a hurried voice.

He looked back at her and sneered. "Except the very first thing you say to me is 'I am not here to kill you,' which basically means that you are here to kill me."

Hattie ran her tongue over her lips. She stared up at him as innocently as her nerves would allow. "But what reason do I have to kill you?"

Beni raised his eyebrows and let out a short guffaw. "We are like twins, thinking the same thing."

She swallowed hard, and he leveled the barrel at her face again.

"I am tired and losing patience, Hattie."

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she looked up at him again, her eyes were determined and earnest. "I was helping Ardeth."

Beni's brow furrowed in puzzlement. "Who?"

She valiantly fought the urge to roll her eyes. _"Who?_ The Med-Jai, Beni. With the black robes and tattoos...They kept him in _your cabin - "_

Beni smiled in realization. "Oh, of course. Forgive me, I never learned his name." A dirty sneer found its way into the corner of his mouth. "But I am not screwing him, either."

Hattie's face flushed with color, and she glared up at him through her embarrassment. "That was _one time - "_

"And yet here you are, trying to kill me for him."

"I wasn't trying to kill you!"

Beni glared back at her incredulously. "Then what are you doing here? What do you want from me?"

Hattie pressed her lips together, wracking her mind for something she could tell him - anything that would get him to leave and never come back. She could just barely catch the blurry edges of an idea, and since he had a gun in her face, she decided to go with it:

"Meela is really angry with you. She's sending men here to kill you."

Beni eyed her suspiciously, but his mouth jerked with a nervous expression. "Meela can't kill me. I am taking her to Hamunaptra."

Hattie let out a long, sympathetic sigh, gazing up at him with wide eyes. "She's starting to think she'd be better off forcing Campbell or my brother to do it for free."

That little muscle beside his eye twitched. His grip tightened on the gun.

"She can't do that. She promised me a lot of money," he said desperately.

If she hadn't been pinned on her back, Hattie might have shrugged. "She said you just keep leading her into traps with the Med-Jai. She thinks you're working with them."

Beni's eyes narrowed, and he leaned over her threateningly. His cigarette was between his teeth and his face was inches from hers, and she didn't like how close the sizzling ash was to her cheek. She didn't like how much closer the gun barrel was, either, and she couldn't help but stare down it even though his eyes demanded hers.

"But _you_ are working with them, aren't you?" he asked around the cigarette.

Hattie swallowed uneasily, and told the gun. "Y-yes, but - "

"So why should I trust you?"

She gulped, and forced herself to look into his irritable, suspicious gaze. She stared up at him and told him, "Because I'm trying to save your life. Now, you can shoot me and take your chances here, but Meela _will_ kill you. She's out of patience and she's got other...options." Hattie almost choked on the word, but quickly regained her composure. "Or you can trust me, and come with me to safety."

His eyes were still narrowed and suspicious, but she could tell he was thinking this over. She wished he'd get that gun out of her face.

"We don't have much time," she added quickly.

Beni pressed his lips together in contemplation. He stared her down another moment, still unconvinced. "What do you care if Meela wants to kill me?"

Hattie balked. "What?"

"What difference does it make to you?" he demanded. "What difference does it make to your precious Med-Jai?"

He stared up at him, perplexed and taken aback. Her mouth gaped for the want of words she couldn't find right away. "Beni, we're not just going to..._let_ you get killed..."

Beni leaned back and pulled his cigarette from his mouth, breathing out a gray cloud of smoke. He kept the gun trained on her, and scratched his chin thoughtfully. She wanted to be relieved that he wasn't so close to her anymore, but his eyes were still so shifty and untrusting. The small of her back was beginning to ache from the weight of him over her.

"What is the gun for, then?"

Hattie gave him an obvious roll of her eyes. "What do you think it's for? Meela has men everywhere."

He watched her with a studious frown for another moment before at last pushing the hammer back and lowering the gun. Hattie closed her eyes and breathed out a shaking sigh of relief, unable to do much more than tremble as he finally got off of her.

"So where are we going?" he asked, throwing on his shirt and tugging his suspenders up onto his shoulders. Hattie swallowed hard, and forced herself to sit up.

"The Med-Jai camp," she said quietly. "It's two miles south of here."

Beni scoffed, muttering to himself in Hungarian as he put on his shoes. "Then what?"

Hattie shrugged stiffly, reluctant to admit, "I don't know."

He raised his eyebrows at her in surprise. "You don't_ know?"_

She shook her head.

He looked her over in disbelief, shoving her gun into the waistband of his trousers. "What is your whole thing with that desert man, anyway?"

Hattie pressed her lips together.

"I don't know," she murmured, staring dismally at her shoes.

Beni sighed impatiently. "Well. Are we going or what?"

She glanced up and met his unpleasant glare. "Yes." She got up off of the bed, trying to hid the way her legs still shook from adrenaline and fear. She trailed after him out of the tent, frowning at the gun Ardeth had given her.

"Are you going to give that back?" she asked.

He let out a humorless laugh. "Not a chance."

"But - "

Beni turned and looked at her gravely. "Do you think you are the first bitch to sneak into my room with a gun? I am not taking any chances with _you."_


	19. More or Less

**More or Less**

Beni's incessant whining was enough to make Hattie consider, if only briefly, the notion that maybe she _should_ have just shot him.

"I cannot believe that Meela would want to_ kill me,"_ he was saying for the hundredth time. They were a sufficient distance from Meela's camp, and so far they were safe. Or, as safe as they could hope to be, given the circumstances. Hattie's eyes darted this way and that, anxiously searching for the slightest indication of an ambush. There were none. And even though she supposed she should be taking comfort in that, the realization kept her on edge. Had Meela and her men already returned to their camp? How could they have missed them? Were they still at Ardeth's camp? Was her brother okay?

Was Ardeth okay?

She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself in the desert chill, forcing her nervous thoughts out of her mind for the time being. It was dark and cold and she wasn't _entirely_ sure which way south was, but she thought she was headed in basically the right direction. In the flat expanse of the desert, she was certain to see a camp, wasn't she?

"I was going to be _so rich,"_ Beni lamented.

Hattie shot him a look, her nerves worn thin from worry and fear and exhaustion. "Well that's over now, alright? Just get over it. You're lucky to be alive."

Lucky indeed. If only he knew he owed his life entirely to her, right then.

Beni's eyes narrowed at her. "What is so lucky about being alive when you have to scrounge for survival?"

She sighed incredulously. "You're being dramatic."

"I am _not,"_ he retorted in a sing-song. "I have been poor_ all my life..."_

Hattie rolled her eyes, casting a brief glance at the gun in his waistband. Of course, she couldn't kill him. She knew she couldn't kill anybody. But if she had the gun, he might have to shut up. Or at least act like a grown man instead of a whiny child. She indulged the fantasy of snatching it before deciding against that. She could very well imagine how that would go. Either Beni would think she was going to kill him and dart off back to Meela's camp, or Beni would think she was going to kill him and tackle her to the sand trying to get the gun._ Or_ he'd do neither and attempt to plead for his life, which would certainly mean much,_ much_ worse whining than she was suffering through right now.

"This is all your fault, too," he went on. Or maybe said all of the sudden. She'd tuned out his words, and his voice had played like an annoying melody in the back of her head. But when he shot a glare at her and pointed accusingly, she was pulled out of her thoughts and back into his pity party. "If you had not jumped off of that stupid boat, everything would be fine and I would be rich."

Hattie raised her eyebrows, fully prepared to tune him out again. She was squinting at the dull horizon in the darkness, trying to decide if those were really tents up ahead, but then he said:

"But _nooo_, you went and ruined everything, just so that you could go and screw the turban-head."

She stopped in her tracks, and turned to glare at him. _"Don't_ talk about that."

He eyed her smugly. "Why not? Are you embarrassed about it now?"

Hattie crossed her arms over her chest. "Well I'm embarrassed that everyone keeps bringing it up! It isn't anybody's business..."

Beni chuckled, cruel and low in his throat, which he didn't do very often. It made her considerably more nervous than the annoying, high-pitched chortles she'd heard much too often.

"It is those Med-Jais' business, isn't it?"

She clenched her teeth and started walking again, as fast as she could. He kept up without much trouble.

"I bet it would ruin everything for him if they found out," he said tauntingly.

Hattie wanted to keep up her determined strides, but her whole body froze against her will. It was too late to pretend to be nonchalant; anyway, she remembered that Beni had been in the tent when Meela had talked about using the information for blackmail, so she couldn't very well convince him he hadn't happened upon some leverage. All she could do was glare at him helplessly, angry and terrified all at once. Could she dare to bring Beni into the Med-Jai camp now?

She should have killed him.

Hattie blinked hard and tried to clear her head even though he was grinning at her in the most obnoxious way.

"What are you getting at?" she asked impatiently.

Beni's smile widened, and he leaned back on his heels, happier than she'd ever seen him. He reached a hand up to his chin and rubbed it thoughtfully, looking her over with a malicious smirk.

"I will get rich one way or another," he told her mysteriously.

Hattie's mouth twitched. "Well I don't have any money, and I doubt the Med-Jai have anything you're after, either."

Beni scoffed. "They are very concerned about Hamunaptra. Something must be there."

She let out an impatient sigh and started walking again. "Well, it's not what you think."

Hattie couldn't help letting out a cry of surprise when he grabbed her roughly by the arm and jerked her to a stop. He glared at her with narrowed, suspicious eyes. "What do _you_ know about it?"

She gulped before regaining herself with an airy sniff. "It doesn't matter. You wouldn't believe it, anyway."

He let her go with a shove, watching her darkly. "Try me."

Hattie shifted her weight nervously, suddenly feeling foolish at the prospect of telling him why the Med-Jai guarded Hamunaptra. She supposed she shouldn't feel self-conscious...she wasn't the one who believed in the curse. But just the same, Ardeth's explanation was the very thing that compelled her to defy Meela and help him escape in the first place.

That and the looming prospect of sleeping with Beni.

But she'd agreed to help Ardeth long before that unappealing prospect became a factor...

This wasn't the first time it had occurred to her that helping Ardeth protect Hamunaptra because of a supposed curse was silly. And she could admit, however reluctantly, that she probably wouldn't have helped him - or even bothered to sneak into Beni's room and speak with him at all - if he hadn't been handsome. She was drawn to him because he was dark and mysterious and exciting, and there was clearly something fishy going on with Meela.

"They're just...they think they're protecting the world from a curse. A curse that Meela wants to...um, lift."

Beni stared back at her, flighty and suspicious and ever.

"I knew that already," he said impatiently.

Hattie frowned. "You did?"

Beni rolled his eyes. "I listened to your desert lover tell you all about it, remember?"

She _did_ remember, suddenly. He'd been eavesdropping that night Ardeth convinced her to help him. That's how he'd gotten her and Rick in trouble with Meela in the first place. _That's_ really where all of her troubles started.

More or less.

"Oh," she breathed. "Well...that's all."

Beni let out an incredulous snort. "That is not all. It can't be."

Hattie raised an eyebrow. "I suppose you don't believe in curses..."

"I do," he told her quickly, emphatically. When she looked up at him, into his steely blue eyes, she saw an uncharacteristic earnestness that told her he was being quite serious. "I believe in curses."

She nodded her head, and started to shrug, and tell him again that that was all there was to it, but he interrupted her.

"I don't believe that_ you_ believe in them, though," he said.

Hattie blinked. She stammered for something to say before at last settling on a rather unconvincing, "Well, I believe in _this_ one."

Beni eyed her suspiciously. "Why?"

She stared back at him for an aggravated moment before at last letting out a flustered sigh. She started off at a fast pace again, and he moseyed along after her.

"I don't know why," she retorted impatiently. "I guess...because_ he_ believed it so much, and...I already didn't trust Meela. That's why."

Beni scoffed, looking at her like she was undoubtedly the stupidest person he'd ever seen.

"You gave up thousands of dollars, and put yourself in all kinds of danger, for something a desert man believes in?"

Hattie didn't say anything and kept walking.

"He is not_ that_ handsome, you know."

She felt irritation bristling all up her spine, even though her cheeks flushed with guilty embarrassment. She snapped, "That's not the reason."

"Oh, please," Beni chuckled, low and smug. "I may not be handsome, but I have seen the stupid things a woman will do for a handsome man."

Hattie refused to let her feet stop this time, but he kept talking:

"The stupid things women would do for your brother, for instance. It is always the same. He would pretend to be this wonderful, noble man. But he was just using them for what they would give him. And your precious desert man is using you, too."

Without a thought, she whirled around and faced him, her hands clenched in angry fists. She could just make out his terrible sneer in the moonlight.

"My brother_ is_ a noble man!" she told him fiercely. "And you don't know anything about Ardeth!"

Beni met her eyes steadily. "I know he cannot marry you."

"Who said anything about marriage?" she demanded.

"And he wouldn't, even if he could," Beni told her. "You are just a good-time American girl. You are easy for men like him and a tease for men like me, and no one will ever want you."

Hattie didn't want to believe that a bitter, whiny little bastard like Beni could make her feel anything other than extreme annoyance, but his words hit her like a hard slap across the face, knocking the wind from her lungs and leaving her momentarily stunned. She stared back at him, her mouth hanging open for the want of words that wouldn't come. _Ooh,_ how she wanted to hit him right then. She wanted to clock back and hit him like the hero in a nickelodeon, but she was too shocked to do anything other than stand there uselessly.

Finally, something came through the blank haze of her mind to say to him. It wasn't as clever as she might have hoped, but it felt good just to tell him to his awful, smug, weaselly face:

"You pathetic little _bastard._ What is _wrong_ with you?!"

His eyes narrowed petulantly, and he crossed his arms over his chest. "Nothing." He breathed a sigh and glanced around the desert while she stewed there, her heart thumping wildly in her chest with anger. "Are we going to this damned Med-Jai camp or not?"

"You can starve to death out here and rot in hell for all I care," she spat. Her own words cut her with the slight sting of guilt; Hattie never spoke to people that way. She really _tried_ to be a genuinely affable person, and she didn't like saying cruel things to other people. Even when they deserved it.

But, well...Beni deserved it.

He grumbled something in Hungarian to himself before reminding her, "Well, you're stuck with me anyway."

"Fine. But I'm not talking to you anymore."

"Fine," he retorted. "You are not so great to talk to, either."

Hattie walked a little faster, too irritated with him to feel relieved at the clear outline of tents gathered on the horizon in front of them.

"I'm not talking to you."

Beni rolled his eyes and, probably just to be annoying, kept up with her stride for stride, walking just a little too closer to her and brushing her shoulder every now and then with his. She flinched at his touch every time and shot him a look, which he readily returned.

They were only ten yards or so from the edge of the camp before Beni spoke again. She hated him and his words and his horrible, whiny little voice when he said them, because she_ knew_ - _she knew_ - he had saved them until that very moment on purpose.

Because he really was a pathetic little bastard, and she probably should have shot him when she had the chance.

"You are going to wish you were nicer to me all along, though," he said in a tone that was too high-pitched to be properly threatening. "Because I know your precious secret, don't I?"

Her eyes widened, too nervous to glare as angrily as she wanted to. She gulped for breath, but he just smiled grimly.

"Ah! Here we are at that camp. I wonder where the _very important_ Med-Jai stay..."

Beni started off at a stroll through the village, but he didn't make it very far. Hattie lunged for his elbow and dragged him to a stop.

"Damn it, Beni, _what?!"_ she demanded in a hopeless whisper, her eyes darting in a paranoid search for anyone who might hear them. "What do you want from me? What?"

He shrugged mysteriously and attempted to jerk his arm out of her grasp. Her fingers tightened.

"It is too late for that," he told her smugly.

Even though his words made her bite back an anxious yelp in the back of her throat, Hattie managed to find a cool line of wisdom somewhere in her plotter's mind. Because men like Beni always, _always_ had a price. She reminded herself of that and tried desperately to cool the terrified commotion inside her.

"I can't just let you ruin his life like this," she said.

Beni raised his eyebrows. "Actually, my dear, _you_ ruined his life."

Hattie sucked back a breath and tried to stay patient. She tried to keep Ardeth at the forefront of her mind; Ardeth, whose life and position and everything he'd ever known was hanging in the balance of this horrible conversation with this horrible man.

"Perhaps if you were a more chaste girl, none of this would have happened," he went on dramatically. "This is what some of my English friends would call a cautionary tale. This is what happens when a girl - such as yourself - is promiscuous with the wrong man - "

"Beni," she cut in impatiently.

He met her eyes and smirked.

"You really have no money?" he asked.

Hattie let out a sigh, knowing in the cold pit of her stomach what he would ask her. She shook her head wearily.

He gave her a smug smile. "Then I am afraid promiscuity will just have to suit you."

She could feel the sharp edges of dread within her, but she pushed them away. She thought about Ardeth instead.

A part of her wanted to abandon him. She knew she had no future with him, not as long as he was a betrothed man. She knew she had nothing ahead of her with him, and she might have known that the best course of action, for herself, was to let him fall to the judgments of his tribe rather than play a prostitute trying to protect him. And she wanted to believe that there was nothing there. That she really was a fool for ever helping the man at all.

But she didn't believe that. She didn't, and she couldn't. She remembered, vividly, the touch of his hand on hers. On her face. She remembered his breathless kiss just before she turned herself over to Meela. She remembered the night that had caused them so much trouble in the first place. And she remembered his eyes when he told her about the curse. She remembered his honest, passionate eyes, and she _knew_. She couldn't abandon him. Not even now. He was a good man and he cared for her. She didn't know why he cared for her, or how much. But he'd risked his life to save her and this whole time - this entire trip - it had been the two of them against everyone.

She couldn't abandon him. Not now. Not when their secret would certainly destroy him. He didn't deserve to be destroyed.

She glanced up into Beni's eyes, and a strange sort of determination started to work its way through her whole body. She remembered the pistol in Beni's waistband, and knew what needed to be done.

Hattie swallowed hard, but her face was very serious and calm. She said, "Tell the people in one of these tents that we're married, then."


	20. The Other Woman

_**Author's Note. **It's been forever, and I totally owe you an update. This story actually doesn't have too much left of it, I don't think (it could go one of two ways; one would end it very soon - the other would start this whole other thing...and I don't know. This story's been in the works for almost three years now, and I'm ready to get it wrapped up.) But we'll see. Most likely, it has somewhere around five chapters left._

* * *

**The Other Woman**

"Wait."

Beni stopped just outside one of the tents, turning back to her impatiently.

"There's something I need to take care of first," she said in a grave voice. "And I need your help."

He met her eyes and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring back at her suspiciously. "Then we will take care of it after."

Hattie let out a little sigh, glancing past him at the tent before looking back at him again. "It_ really_ needs to be taken care of now."

His eyes narrowed. "It is just going to have to wait."

She chewed on her bottom lip uncertainly; somehow, she needed to find the appropriate Med-Jai leaders to deliver Ardeth's message, _Expect a battle in the morning._ Ardeth spoke English, so she could reasonably hope that at least a few other Med-Jai did, as well. But she had a much better chance of finding the right people if she could make use of Beni's fluent Arabic.

"It's important," she told him emphatically, but he only laughed. "Someone's attacking the encampment tomorrow morning. I have to warn them."

Beni paused, turning to look at her curiously. "Really?"

"It would really help me if I had someone who spoke Arabic."

He frowned in thoughtful consideration, and for a moment she thought he might agree. But instead he just shrugged and took hold of the tent flap.

"Eh, we have plenty of time."

"It's pretty late."

"I can be quick."

Hattie scoffed. "I don't doubt that."

Beni shot a glare over his shoulder. "Or I can take my time."

She let out a sigh and glanced up at the stars dismally. "Let's just get this over with."

"As your brother would say...That's the spirit."

Beni peeked his head into the tent and whispered something in Arabic. Hattie could hear him talking rapidly with someone inside, and she found herself hoping whoever it was would turn them away. Surely even the most hospitable Muslim would have to think twice before allowing Beni in their home...

But the flap opened, and Beni beckoned her in with a leering grin. Hattie let out a long sigh and followed behind him, wondering if he had a flask on him she could borrow. Until she'd communicated Ardeth's message to the Med-Jai, she needed Beni. And as long as she needed Beni, she couldn't kill him. She couldn't see any way out of sleeping with him this time.

"Hattie, darling, is that you?"

She startled at the sound of her name, glancing across the tent to meet the wide, surprised gaze of Jonathan Carnahan. She frowned in confusion, glancing around the tent in search of the others who had been at Ardeth's camp. She smelled cigarette smoke before she saw Campbell squatting nearby, cleaning a pistol. Beni groaned and muttered to himself in Hungarian.

"What's going on? What happened at the camp?" Hattie asked anxiously, rushing over to Jonathan. "Where's my brother?"

Jonathan cleared his throat, glancing curiously at Beni a few times before turning his attention to her. "Well, it seems our mysterious desert friend has struck a deal with Meela. He told her he'd go willingly as a captive if she'd let the lot of us go. She wasn't too keen on the agreement, what with that vexing nonsense of Evy and the sword, but I suppose it was too good a deal to pass up..."

"But how did you get here?"

"Oh, that - uh - fellow...the one who brought Meela to the camp in the first place. Ardeth told him to drag us here. And here we are."

Hattie nodded her head, and asked again anxiously, "And where's my brother?"

Jonathan's brow furrowed up, and he let out a long sigh. "Funny thing about that - he and Evy are in some super secret meeting with the higher-ups around here - sort of thing Campbell and I aren't important enough to attend, I'm afraid - "

"Where?" she asked, the word coming out urgent and breathless.

Jonathan shrugged. "I don't know. I'll admit, I was a tad perturbed over them taking Evy off to some secret tent, but O'Connell assured me he'd keep an eye on her, and besides...the company here is awfully pleasant."

He gave her a little grin, and nodded in the direction of a young woman in the center of the tent, stoking a fire. Her back was to them, and Hattie could only just make out the side of her face in the golden, flickering light.

"Our darling hostess, Fatima," Jonathan told her, and sighed. "Bloody shame, she's betrothed to ol' Ardeth. Lucky wanker."

Hattie's throat went dry, and she couldn't stop herself from staring at the woman, desperate and curious to get a glimpse of her face. Perhaps sensing her gaze, Fatima glanced over her shoulder, but Hattie could only bear to look into her dark, catlike eyes for a moment before quickly retreating to the floor of the tent.

The cold, sick feeling of guilt sunk in her stomach, and she didn't dare look back up again.

She really _wouldn't_ have slept with Ardeth had she known about Fatima...Would she?

Hattie supposed going to bed with someone was always a risky endeavor. She'd learned that the worst way of all, years ago when she was still in America and a teenager. That dreadful incident with the neighbor boy, whom she'd always liked but hadn't wanted to...hadn't wanted to...

_I don't want to._

But he did anyway.

For a while she was certain she would be a nun. She never wanted another man to touch her ever again. Such things could only be tainted by a terrible, terrible memory. She didn't want to go through anything like it, ever again. _Ever_ again.

Except that, only a few years later, something else happened. Something else entirely. That gawky, awkward cop who lived the next floor down, the redhead who was only five years older than her but seemed like an adult, with his adult job at the police station - who'd begged her to go out on a date with him. _Just one, please. You're the most beautiful girl I've ever laid eyes on._

Something else happened.

_Can I k-kiss you? _His hands were shaking in his lap. And she let that, timid, homely little man kiss her, even though he wasn't particularly dashing. She let him kiss her, because she realized that saying yes meant she hadn't said no. As long as she said yes, it couldn't ever be as dreadful as that time with the neighbor boy. And if she was smart, and she maneuvered herself into the appropriate position, she could make a yes into a no when she needed it to be. She could escape out a bathroom window when she left to powder her nose. As long as she said yes, she was in control. She was allowing something to happen; it wasn't happening to her, against her will. Not ever again.

But Ardeth had hardly been such a case; he was no trembling redheaded cop who lived down the stairs. He was handsome and mysterious and they had just escaped together, against all odds. They'd broken out of a room and raced across the deck and jumped off of the barge into the shocking cool of the Nile. And she'd wanted him more than anyone before. She'd wanted him and she'd offered herself. No had never been on her lips, not even behind them. She'd wanted him desperately, and she knew she could have a man if she wanted him. Not because she was the most beautiful or the most charming, but because she knew how to say yes. Men liked hearing yes. Even a man like Ardeth.

Beni's words from just earlier that night whispered darkly through her ears again._ He would pretend to be this wonderful, noble man. But he was just using them for what they would give him. And your precious desert man is using you, too._

She forced herself to glance up at Fatima again, standing with her arms crossed and conversing with Beni in Arabic. She took in the other woman's tall, proud form - the lovely features of her face. She watched in perplexity as the Arab woman laughed at something Beni said, flashing her white teeth in an enchanting smile.

Hattie couldn't imagine Beni saying anything that would make a woman laugh. At least not intentionally.

But still, there was Fatima, beautiful and smiling, letting them all into her home, chatting hospitably with_ Beni_ of all people. She wasn't some shirking desert wallflower who kept her eyes down. Hattie might not have even said a word to the woman, but she could see in the way that she carried herself that she was strong, capable, intelligent.

Fatima glanced back at her again, her dark eyes curious and sharp. Hattie had to make a conscious effort not to look away, and offered her a thin smile. Her heart started to pound hard and fast in her chest when Fatima made her way over and leaned down to greet her.

"Hello. I am Fatima," she said in precise, careful English. "You must forgive my English. I am so...pleased, your friend speak both."

Fatima gestured back towards Beni with a smile.

"You are hungry?"

In the midst of all of the events that day, Hattie really hadn't had an opportunity to think about her stomach. But the mention of food made her ache for something to eat. She noticed just then that Beni had a bowl clutched in his hand, and he was scooping at whatever was in there mercilessly with a piece of flatbread.

Hattie sighed and glanced up at Fatima in a way that she hoped wasn't as sheepish as she felt. "I am so hungry. But I really must talk to the leaders of the tribe immediately. It's urgent."

Fatima blinked, a strained smile on her face as she nodded slowly. She glanced back at Beni and said something in Arabic. He trotted over to her, looking between Fatima and Hattie in something like suspicion.

"What did you ask her?"

Hattie would have preferred almost anyone else to act as translator through this conversation; when it came down to it, she would have preferred to be having the conversation with almost any other Med-Jai, too. But Beni and Fatima were who she had, and Ardeth's message was urgent. She took a deep breath and looked sternly at Beni with her bright, blue eyes.

"Tell her I need to meet with the leaders of the tribe."

Beni's eyes narrowed. "We had an agreement."

Hattie didn't even blink. "And we still do. But this is important."

Beni eyed her suspiciously; Hattie was aware all the while of the curious way Jonathan and Campbell were watching them, listening in on their conversation in utter confusion. She swallowed hard and leaned a little closer to Beni, telling him quietly:

"We have to wait for these people to fall asleep, anyway. I might as well take care of it now."

He glared at her a moment longer, his mouth twisted in thoughtful contemplation, before at last turning to Fatima and, presumably, telling her that Hattie needed to speak with someone important. Fatima turned to Hattie with wide, urgent eyes, and nodded her head. She took Hattie by the arm and pulled her to her feet, and Hattie had no choice but to follow her out into the night.


	21. Duty Bound

_**Author's Note. **And it's a shockingly quick update for this story!_

* * *

**Duty Bound**

"What on earth are you saying to her?" Hattie demanded in an irritable whisper. So far, the trek across the Med-Jai camp had consisted of little more than listening to Beni jabber in Arabic and Fatima erupt in laughter. Hattie always hated being on the outside of a joke, but this was worse than usual. Annoying, unpleasant Beni was charming Arrdeth's fiancée into fits of giggles, and Hattie couldn't even tell if it was because Beni was actually funny, or if Fatima was just an idiot.

Beni gave her a smug grin and nudged Fatima, whispering something else that made her snort loudly, gripping his arm when she doubled over in laughter. Hattie rolled her eyes.

"Is she drunk or something?"

Beni sniffed airily. "We devout Muslims do not drink."

Hattie raised her eyebrows incredulously. "You're a devout Muslim, now?"

"I have always been a devout Muslim."

"You drink a lot of vodka for a devout Muslim."

Beni scoffed. "Clearly you were mistaken. It was only water."

Hattie rolled her eyes, glancing at Fatima impatiently. "So are we almost there?"

As if to answer her, Fatima straightened with a jovial sigh, giving one last smile to Beni before striding purposefully towards a very large tent. She pulled back the tent flap and beckoned them inside. With a deep breath, Hattie followed after her, stepping into a narrow room blocked off from the rest of the tent by heavy rugs. A foreboding Med-Jai warrior stood in front of the rugs with his arms crossed in front of him, and glared down at Fatima as she whispered urgently in Arabic. His dark, severe gaze barreled into Hattie, and she gasped back in surprise. He said one word to Fatima, and pulled back the rug.

Hattie glanced between Fatima and the warrior uncertainly, but the Med-Jai guard didn't look like the patient type. With a sigh, she started for the opening, but stopped when she realized Fatima and Beni weren't following her.

"Aren't you coming?"

Beni shrugged. "If they are talking to O'Connell and that British woman, somebody speaks English."

Hattie's brow furrowed. "I don't think we can count on that - "

But Fatima was already tugging at his elbow, and nodded at the tent flap implicatively.

"I am going to go smoke hookah with Fatima," he said with a leering grin, and scurried out after her before Hattie could stammer a protest.

She let out a frustrated sigh and shook her head. She supposed she shouldn't have expected any help from the likes of Beni, especially in this bizarre situation where a woman was actually enjoying his company. Hattie just hoped someone in this tent spoke English.

The Med-Jai warrior gave her a nudge and she jumped, hurrying past the rug and into a wide, open room. At least two dozen grim-faced Med-Jai were situated in a wide circle around a fire, and Evelyn and Rick stood in the middle of it all, in the midst of some animated discussion with a very old man. His skin was creased and wrinkled and hard like leather, and he sported a long white beard. When he glanced up at Hattie, she saw something familiar about his dark, soulful eyes, and she realized he must be Ardeth's father, Ayman Bay.

"How many of these fools must I entertain tonight?" he asked in clean, accented English. His words sliced through Hattie like the cold edge of a knife, and she stood there utterly speechless, gaping for something to say as the entire room turned and stared at her.

Hattie gulped, and somehow managed to pull her gaze away from his severe glare, and found Rick's wide, blue eyes instead.

Her brother, the only reason she was in Egypt at all. It felt like a lifetime since Jamir rushed to tell her that a man named Rick O'Connell was about to be hanged. She'd come all this way to find him, to see the brother she so admired and loved, and she felt as if she'd barely spent a moment with him at all. She still loved him so much...but it occurred to her then, for perhaps the first time, that he was really a stranger to her. The boy who had gone off to find adventure anywhere in the world had grown into an unfamiliar and jaded man. She realized, suddenly, that he'd never been after adventure during this whole trip to Hamunaptra. He'd only wanted to mind his own business; he'd only taken the job with Meela for the money. And when the barge landed with Meela intending to release them, he would have gotten off of the boat and taken her back to Cairo without a second thought.

Hattie had caused all of this. It wasn't _their_ adventure; it was hers. And her brother had unwillingly been dragged on, and on, and on -

"State your business, or leave us to ours," Ayman said, dark and precise. Hattie startled, turning back to him quickly.

The words poured out of her mouth in awkward rush:

"Ardeth said to tell you, to prepare for a battle in the morning."

Ayman's white eyebrows rose, and his lips jerked with a small, unreadable expression.

"You have spoken with my son," he said in an even voice.

Hattie ran her tongue over her lips and nodded.

He let out a weary sigh, and glanced at one of the Med-Jai next to them. "It appears there is some semblance to this chaos. Ready the men."

The warrior got to his feet immediately and strode right past Hattie, out of the tent. She looked up at her brother again. She wanted desperately to go over to him, to just be near someone familiar and safe. But she was paralyzed by guilt, looking into his weary gaze, knowing she had caused all of this trouble for him.

"I would like to see that tattoo again, Mr. O'Connell," Ayman said. Rick turned to him, and walked over, holding out his arm for the old man to examine in the firelight. After a moment, Ayman shook his head and sighed. "It is authentic; you are a Med-Jai." He eyed Rick gravely. "And yet you do not believe."

Rick shrugged his stiff shoulders. "Look, I've seen a lot of weird stuff...and I know there's something definitely, you know..._evil_ at Hamunaptra. And I don't mess around with that stuff. But a cursed mummy, coming back to life?"

Just then Evelyn let out a little moan, and sank to the floor, holding her head in her hands. Rick was at her side immediately.

"Hey, everything okay?"

She shook her head, gazing at something far off in utter disbelief. "This isn't possible...this just isn't possible..."

Ayman gazed down his nose at her. "I can assure you, Miss Carnahan, that it is quite possible. There is no other explanation. You are remembering your former life as Nefertiri, daughter of Pharaoh Seti, princess of Egypt."

Hattie stared at them in utter disbelief. But neither her brother nor Evelyn glanced up; Evelyn sat there on the floor, desperately trying to come to grips with a notion that defied all logic, and Rick knelt just beside her, a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but utter bewilderment on his face.

"Fate has brought you here," Ayman told them firmly.

In spite of everything, Rick scoffed, jerking a thumb in Hattie's direction. "Actually, my sister jumping off of a boat brought us here."

Ayman's heavy brow furrowed, and he looked up at Hattie again. "I am afraid I am unfamiliar with this part of your journey."

And so Hattie was forced to recount her involvement with Ardeth on the boat, taking great pains to omit their night in Ansar entirely. All the while Ayman stared at her with the most unnerving and stern expression; Hattie could barely form the words under the steeled severity of his glare. But when she was finished, he only nodded his head, and commented:

"I suppose Allah bestows faith when needed, even on the most unlikely and undeserving."

Hattie glanced down, at a complete loss for any sort of response. The entire tent became very quiet, and all she could hear was her own uneven breath and the pounding of her heart.

What on earth was going on?

Evelyn was a reincarnated Egyptian princess? And her brother was a Med-Jai? Hattie could barely wrap her mind around all of these wild possibilities. A week ago, she could have never been convinced of such nonsense...but here, in the midst of Ardeth's people, it seemed as possible as anything. Stranger still, Rick and Evelyn seemed to be legitimately considering such explanations.

"If this is true," Evelyn's quiet, shaking voice filled the room. "If these really are memories...then Meela must be stopped."

She looked up and met Ayman's eyes. The old man nodded gravely.

"I believe my son intends to do just that. Right here."

"He-he had me bring their guide here," Hattie spoke up suddenly. Ayman looked at her again.

"With no one else, Meela will have no choice but to rely on Ardeth to lead her to Hamunaptra," he said.

"Only he's leading her and all her men_ here,"_ Rick said with a bitter sigh.

Ayman met his eyes and nodded.

"But - " Hattie bit back the word just as fast as she blurted it. Ayman turned to her and raised his eyebrows, and she breathed a shaking sigh, forced to continue her thought. "But won't Meela kill him when she sees he's led her into a trap?"

Ayman pressed his lips together, and stared back at her for what felt like a very long time. She was quite certain she saw an entirely different expression in his eyes, something soft and somber; a kind of guarded sadness that might have made her feel sorry for him, if she wasn't absolutely terrified of the man.

"We are sworn at manhood...to do any and all on our part to prevent Imhotep's resurrection. My son is a man of duty, and he has chosen his fate."

Hattie couldn't look away from him, even as her eyes began to mist with tears. She knew Ayman could see the look on her face - could likely read the depth of her feelings for Ardeth in her eyes. But his expression was unmoved. He told all of them in a tone that would not be argued with:

"It is in your best interests to return to Cairo now."

Hattie's lips parted for words that wouldn't come; but her brother's voice intervened.

"Then we'll be out of your hair as soon as we can get packed up."


	22. Faith and Hope

_**Author's Note. **And the hits keep coming. Ya'll, I am determined to finish this story off, and soon._

* * *

**Faith and Hope**

Hattie felt sick and uneasy as she followed behind Rick and Evelyn, her feet placing one numb step after the other as they made their way back to Fatima's tent. The blackness of night was lifting; soon, it would be dawn. Soon, it would be morning. Soon, Ardeth would lead Meela and her men to the Med-Jai camp, where he would likely meet his end protecting a curse she was still uncertain to believe. She shook her head, desperate to put the thought out of her mind.

Ardeth had laid his life on the line, just so Rick and Campbell and the Carnahans could go freely. When Hattie crept out of the camp, Meela had been intent to kill all of them...but Ardeth made her an offer she couldn't refuse. He gave up himself, a promise that would certainly ensure a safe passage to Hamunaptra. Or so she thought, anyway. She probably wasn't anticipating a Med-Jai trap, though she was probably suspicious of Beni's sudden disappearance. Hattie tried hopelessly not to imagine Ardeth bound like a prisoner, several guns likely trained on him as he was "forced" to take Meela the rest of the way to the City of the Dead. She tried not to imagine what would happen when Meela saw the foreboding black line of Med-Jai warriors prepared to cut her off, to end her journey once and for all. She tried not to imagine how the first shots fired by Meela's men would likely be at Ardeth.

She closed her eyes against the tears, wrapping her arms around her body in a pitiful attempt to ward off the cold sickness of guilt.

They arrived at Fatima's tent and Rick threw open the flap, helping Evelyn inside. It was dark and quiet, and only a few glowing embers still burned where the fire had once been. Ayman was graciously lending them camels and provisions for the journey back to the port, and a few men were collecting everything they might need. They just needed to fetch Jonathan, Campbell and Beni, and they could go free.

Evelyn crept over to her brother and shook him awake. Jonathan startled with a gasp, blinking hard in the darkness until he made out her face.

"What in the bloody hell is going on?" he asked in a hoarse, irritable voice.

"We're leaving," Rick told him. "We need to wake up Campbell so we can go."

Jonathan grimaced distastefully at Campbell's sleeping form nearby. _"Must_ we...?"

Rick rolled his eyes and poked at Campbell with the toe of his boot. "Hey, rise and shine."

Campbell groaned loudly, stretching her arms over her head. She opened her eyes and glanced around at them in confusion. "So what's the story here?"

"We're leaving," Rick said again. "We gotta get out of here, now."

She sniffed and pulled herself to her feet. "Don't gotta tell me twice, honey. I'm past due for a bath and sleep in a genu-_wine_ bed."

Rick nodded, surveying the tent with quick eyes. Hattie frowned, "Where's Beni?"

Jonathan yawned, his joints popping in protest as he stood up and looked around. "I say, where _did_ that unsavory little blackguard go?"

Hattie shook her head, puzzled. "He said he was going to smoke hookah with Fatima..."

All five of them glanced to the opposite end of the tent, blocked off into its own private room by rugs. With a shrug, Rick strode over and stuck his head in. His tone was casual, but even in the darkness of the tent, Hattie could see the uncomfortable tensing of his arms.

"Hey, put your pants on. We're leaving."

Jonathan grimaced and Hattie shared a look of utter disbelief with him. "You have_ got_ to be kidding."

A moment later, Beni scurried out, tugging on his sandals, one suspender hanging off of his shoulder. Jonathan shook his head, casting a dark glance at the room he'd just left.

"That's it. My faith in humanity is gone," he said.

"Come on, Jonathan," Rick commanded, striding across the tent and throwing open the flap. They all trailed out behind him.

"I said I wouldn't let the Great War do it," Jonathan told Hattie. "But this has decidedly done me in."

Hattie couldn't help but chuckle at his grave tone, and put a hand on his arm. Jonathan only grumbled a sigh, not quite able to wipe the look of flabbergasted disgust off of his face as they walked through the sleeping quiet of the Med-Jai encampment. Dawn was brightening the horizon, and up ahead, Hattie could make out the lumpy silhouettes of camels. She sucked in a breath; this was it.

She was very, very unlikely to ever see Ardeth again. If this was his plan, then it was no wonder he refused to tell her.

"So what happened, then?" he asked after a moment.

Rick let out a weary sigh. "It's a long story."

That was apparently all the more information Rick was willing to disclose right then, and Hattie shrugged helplessly when Jonathan turned his puzzled glance to hers. He breathed a disgruntled sigh, muttering irritably to himself as they came at last to their camels. Much to Hattie's surprise, Ayman was there waiting. She watched him curiously, but his attention was focused on Evelyn.

"When you return to Cairo, see Dr. Bey," he told her. "He will help you sort this out."

She nodded her head, a blank and tired expression on her face. Rick put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Hey. Let's get you up on the camel, huh?"

Evelyn let out a long sigh and met Ayman's eyes again before following Rick to the first of their pack animals.

"Dal-garn things," Campbell muttered over Hattie's shoulder. "Can I trade mine for a horse?"

"Absolutely not," Ayman told her darkly.

Campbell sniffed, glancing at Beni. "I'm gettin' on with you, then."

"No, you are not."

"I sure as hell am," she retorted. "I ain't got no use for them deformed-lookin' hunchback what's-its. Don't think they like me. Got too much attitude, you ask me."

"Must be a case of similar wits and wills," Jonathan muttered under his breath.

Campbell's eyes narrowed, and she whipped out a pistol from somewhere hidden on her person. Hattie gasped in surprise as she trained the barrel on Jonathan, but the English gentleman only sighed, raising his eyebrows incredulously.

_"Really,_ Campbell? You're_ really_ going to shoot me right now?"

Her mouth twisted in contemplation, and she pulled back the hammer. "Boy, I just been waitin' for the right excuse."

"Nobody's shooting anybody," Rick cut in briskly. "Get on the camels or you're getting left."

Jonathan grinned, sounding a little more nervous than he might have intended when he said, "Right-o! On with it, I say."

Rick rolled his eyes and looked at Hattie. "You ready to go?"

She met his gaze and shrugged. He led her over to one of the camels and got it to kneel with a little coaxing and some soft commands in Arabic. He helped her into the saddle and made sure she was settled firmly in her seat before commanding it to stand. Hattie gripped onto the saddle with white knuckles as the camel lurched to its feet, following complacently alongside the others as they headed due north, towards Cairo.

She glanced over her shoulder at the Med-Jai encampment, but only once. She hoped that Ardeth's plan worked, and that the Med-Jai put a stop to Meela before the battle could bleed into the tents where innocent people like Fatima lived. She hoped that somehow, against the odds, Ardeth survived the ordeal and returned to his father and his people. She supposed she hoped he was able to live happily with Fatima, though the thought of him with someone else sent a bitter pang through her body. And she couldn't help but wonder over what had transpired while Ardeth's fiancée was smoking hookah with Beni...

Above all, though she knew it was the least likely thing to happen, she hoped that she would get to see Ardeth again.


	23. The Last Leg

_**Author's Note. **The penultimate chapter! (Everyone should know how much I love that word.)_

* * *

**The Last Leg**

A few days later, Hattie found herself sitting at a table with Jonathan quite similar to the one they'd sat at when the Med-Jai attacked the barge days ago. Their current vessel felt nearly identical to that one, plugging along the Nile's muddy depths on the journey back to Cairo. But Hattie felt as if it wasn't moving at all. She'd been staring at the river bank so long that she felt like she was standing still, and the world was passing her by. She reached an absent hand for her cocktail and took a sip.

Had the Med-Jai succeeded? Was Meela stopped, once and for all? Was Ardeth alright?

Would she ever know?

"Well, I can't say that's how I envisioned the trip going," Jonathan sighed at last, running his finger over the top of his glass.

"Yes, me either," Evelyn's voice piped up, a book under one arm and a glass of scotch in the other. Jonathan's eyes widened.

"Do mine eyes deceive me, or is my beloved, temperate sister having a drink?"

"Oh, hush," she told him, and took a seat. She sighed and took a little burning sip from her glass. "Like _you_ have the right to rib anyone over a drink."

"A man can always rib his baby sister," he told her with a smile, and gave her a nudge. Evelyn bit back a playful expression and nudged him back. He leaned a little closer and told her, just about a murmur, "Your discovery's coming, darling. You're much too good not to find something truly remarkable."

She glanced up at him and let out a sigh, a grim smile on her face. "Yes, well, perhaps I'll _remember_ it from ages past."

"Yeah, about that."

Hattie glanced up at the sound of her brother's voice, and held back a giggle when he took a thoughtful seat next to Evelyn.

"Do you mind if I come with you when you go talk to that, uh...doctor guy?"

"Dr. Bey," Evelyn said with a smile.

"Yeah, him," Rick said, his voice just barely nervous. "I wanna know more about this tattoo."

Evelyn shrugged, but she had a pretty, gleeful spark in her eyes that was difficult to ignore. "Well, Mr. O'Connell, you're perfectly welcome to join me."

Jonathan turned to Hattie. "Well, since the two of them are so bloody magnificent, past lives and tattoos and all that, what are the pair of us ordinary folk going to do?"

"Tell you what I'm doin'," Campbell's voice rang. Jonathan let out a groan, spilling his drink in his lap when she clapped him hard on the shoulder. "I'm headin' back to the good ol' U.S. of A, son."

Jonathan grimaced at his pants and found a handkerchief to mop them off with, telling her sarcastically, "Oh, but Campbell, darling, we'd just miss you so - "

"Yeah, well, you'll have to dry them tears, honey," Campbell said. "I'm bound for God's country; land of the free, home 'a the brave."

"Unless you'd like a drink," Jonathan muttered. "Then it's not so free, is it?"

"How's about you, O'Connell?" Campbell asked as she pulled up a chair from an empty table and maneuvered it between Hattie and Jonathan. He let out an exasperated sigh, but Campbell ignored him. "You makin' your way back home now?"

Rick cleared his throat, shifting in his seat awkwardly. He met Hattie's eyes and said with a kind of self-conscious caution, "Uh, no...I don't think so. Not for a little while, anyway."

"You're crazy," Campbell snorted. "Stickin' around this dal-garned desert. Not a lick of it worth stayin' for, neither."

Rick's mouth twitched for something to say, but he must have changed his mind. He gave her a grim smile and asked, "So are you going back to America all on your own, or is, uh, _Beni_ going with you?"

Campbell blew a loud raspberry that managed to catch Jonathan with the spray. He balked and shot her a look, rubbing his face thoroughly with his handkerchief.

"Please! Ratty lil' som'bitch can rot in hell for all I care. Don't need any more 'a them foreign types in our country, anyways."

"Things didn't work out with the old mister, I take it," Jonathan said sardonically. Campbell gave him a hard eye.

"He _ain't_ my mister," she told him. "We was partners, we split the rent, we shared the bed, and he owed me an eye - _which,_ I don't think I need to remind you - he _still_ owes me."

"It's a fascinating life you lead," Jonathan muttered under his breath.

"Sixty-five dollars and twenty-three cents, that yeller-bellied weasel owes me."

"Uh-huh," Rick said, bored. Hattie watched him touch Evelyn's elbow and jerk his head back towards the bar. She smiled and nodded her head.

"Take it out 'a his wallet or his flesh, but you best believe I'll be taken it back," Campbell continued to rant, pulling her pistol from her holster and holding it up. Jonathan jumped back instinctively. "Me and Mr. Colt here have put up with enough 'a his horse hockey."

Rick and Evelyn slipped quietly away, and Jonathan watched them go longingly. Hattie got the feeling he would have invited her to do the same, if he could find away to escape without Campbell noticing.

"Hey!" Campbell suddenly exclaimed, twisting around in her seat and shouting at the thin form attempting to scurry past. "Drag your miserable ass on back over here, you sorry little bastard!"

Beni glanced over his shoulder and met her eyes with a kind of pitiable dread. He skulked back over, a hand resting on his holster nervously. He cracked an anxious smile and made an unconvincing show of looking nonchalant.

"Campbell, my darling!" he said in his simpering whine. "Can you believe we are nearly back to Cairo?"

She grunted, digging out a carton of cigarettes from her pocket and lighting one up.

"You owe me for the eye," she told him. "And I'm gettin' that money, one way or the other."

Beni gulped and bobbled his head.

"Sixty-five dollars and twenty-three cents."

"Yes. I remember - "

She glared at him, hard and determined. "Don't think you can weasel your way on out of it, neither. You get me that money, or my new American friends back in Cairo will take it from ya. And don't think they won't. Mr. Daniels got half a mind to pummel you way it is._ That_ man knows how to treat a lady."

Hattie suddenly remembered the agonizing cart ride out into the middle of the desert the other day, when Campbell had alluded to "finding something better" than Beni. Mr. Daniels must have been who she meant, and Hattie wondered if she was heading back to America in the company of him and his friends.

Beni gulped and scurried off, and Campbell declared that she had a mind to get a drink. As she lumbered away, the heels of her cowboy boots ringing on the floor, Jonathan breathed a sigh of relief and slipped into the seat she'd previously occupied, right next to Hattie again.

"And what about you, darling?" he asked, leaning an elbow on the back of her chair. "Is it the land of the free and brave for you as well?"

Hattie's throat jerked with a nervous swallow, and she stared back at him with a sad kind of smile on her face. "No..."

"Well," he said softly, running a finger down her arm. "Perhaps we might get a drink sometime."

Hattie glanced down and ran her tongue over her lips. She shrugged her shoulders and told him, "Perhaps."

But her mind was far behind them, across the expanse of the desert. She wondered again about Ardeth, about the supernatural forces he and his men were sworn to battle. About the things he believed in, that should have seemed like utter nonsense to her. She thought about him, and hoped he was alive. Even if she never saw him again, she couldn't help but hope...


	24. Sealed with a Kiss

_**Author's Note. **BAM, finito! A special thanks to all ya'll who reviewed! I'm glad you all enjoyed it, and kept up with it. :)_

_This chapter references taking a hundred lashes as punishment for fornication, which is specified in the Shari'ah._

* * *

**Sealed with a Kiss**

As they walked down the gangplank of the barge, a cruel hand grasped about Hattie's elbow and tugged her to a stop.

"Don't think I have not forgotten what you owe me," a mean, accented voice told her.

Hattie scoffed and glanced over her shoulder into Beni's glinting eyes. "Please. Like you would go all the way out into the desert, find the Med-Jai, and tell them this big secret if I don't - "

He yanked on her arm, his eyes wide and suspicious. With a curious frown, Hattie followed his gaze out into the crowd waiting by the docks. A strange, anxious emotion dropped in her stomach when she saw the group of foreboding figures in black, lurking just there in the shadow of a tall building. She squinted at them, desperately trying to make out their facial features, but only their eyes were visible, and at this distance it was hard to pick one from the other, anyway. With a slow sigh, she glanced back at Beni again.

"What do you think it's about?"

He shrugged and let go of her arm. "I don't know. But it seems I will not have to go out into any desert."

Hattie shook her head and stepped off of the gangplank, joining the whirl of chaos on the docks. She glanced at her brother, but she caught a glimpse of Beni weaving his way in the direction of the Med-Jai, and her eyes widened. Without a word, she darted after him.

"Hey!" she called after him. "What do you think you're doing?"

He gave her a leering look over his shoulder and strode faster. She sucked in a determined breath and jogged after him. She could see the Med-Jai up ahead and lunged for his elbow, but Beni slipped through her grasp and hurried over to them, a smug grin on his face.

"My friends!" he said through ragged breaths. "I have...the most astonishing...news - "

Hattie caught up to him, grabbing his arm roughly. "Beni, come on."

She was only vaguely aware of the way the Med-Jai were murmuring together before two of them took hold of Beni and dragged him from her grasp. He let out a yelp and starting whimpering in Arabic.

"Wait!" she said. "Really, he doesn't know anything - "

One of the Med-Jai held up his hand. "You cannot protect this man."

Hattie's brow furrowed in confusion. "Protect him? I'm not protecting him - "

"He has committed a grievous sin, and for that, he must pay."

Beni winced, shaking his head fervently. "I assure you, you have the wrong man! I am the most devout of Muslims! Allah be praised!"

Hattie tried not to roll her eyes, glancing at the men wildly until she caught a flash of familiarity in one of their gazes. She looked into those dark eyes carefully, not quite allowing herself to trust in what she thought she saw.

"You have disgraced the line of Abd-al-Rashid," one of the men told him gravely, his hand touching the scabbard at his side.

Beni gulped, his eyes becoming even wider and more desperate. "Wh-who is Abd-al-Rashid?"

The man pulled the cloak from his face, revealing a stern, gray-bearded visage. _"I_ am Abd-al-Rashid."

"B-but my most honorable of sirs, I have never even had the pleasure of your acquaintance - "

Abd-al-Rashid's grim eyes narrowed, and his mouth jerked with disgust. His hand flexed on the hilt of his sword. "But you have certainly taken the pleasure of my eldest daughter's acquaintance, have you not?"

Beni gulped, muttering, "Oh. That's what this is about." Before quickly resuming his pathetic groveling. Abd-al-Rashid was not interested in any of his excuses. He looked to one of the men holding Beni.

"Take him into the alleyway. We will handle this right now."

"Wait!" Beni screeched in protest, trying vainly to slip his way out of their grasp. "Your chieftain Ardeth Bay would not allow this!"

Abd-al-Rashid raised his eyebrows incredulously, turning to the man with the eyes Hattie had recognized. Her heart leapt in her throat when the older man asked him:

"Do you protest the killing of this fornicating scum, Ardeth?"

Hattie sucked in a little breath, and Ardeth met her eyes.

"I will tell them the truth about you with my dying breath!" Beni told him, his voice trembling too much to sound as threatening as it ought to have. But Ardeth's eyes widened just the same, and Abd-al-Rashid turned a suspicious glare to the younger man.

"What is he talking about, Ardeth?"

Ardeth stared at Hattie with an unreadable expression in his eyes, and all she could do was stare back at him. Her mind whirred with a hundred questions and her lips were desperate to ask them, but she couldn't breathe a word in the midst of this strange little mess with Beni and Fatima's father.

At last he glanced away from her and looked at Abd-al-Rashid. "I do protest the killing of this man."

Abd-al-Rashid's eyes narrowed, and he spat on the ground. "This is no man."

Ardeth's expression was unmoved. He looked Beni over curiously, an almost amused glint in his eye. Hattie wondered if he was smiling under the cloak that covered most of his face.

"If he is a devout Muslim, there is no reason why he should not restore her honor in matrimony."

Abd-al-Rashid raised an eyebrow, tilting his head to the side skeptically. His voice was quite even and cruel. "After receiving the one hundred lashes, of course."

Beni grimaced, but Ardeth only shrugged, his pointed glare finding the other man's wide, cowardly eyes. "A devout Muslim would accept no less as punishment for such a grievous sin."

Abd-al-Rashid considered this, and reluctantly nodded his head. He looked at the Med-Jai with him, still holding Beni's squirming form between them, and gave an order in Arabic. They dragged him off, and Abd-al-Rashid followed, casting a curious look at Ardeth, who said something that sounded reassuring to the man. They disappeared down the alleyway, and Ardeth turned his attention to Hattie.

She looked at him with eyebrows raised. "A hundred lashes, huh?"

Ardeth let out a sigh and pulled the cloak from his face at last. "He will live."

Hattie shrugged, her eyes dropping to her shoes for a moment before slipping back up to his. "I thought you were dead."

He shook his head, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "By the grace of Allah...no."

"Did you stop Meela?"

Ardeth nodded. "Hamunaptra is safe."

An awkward silence fell between them. She started to take a step towards him, but stopped herself. She glanced down the alleyway again, her curiosity getting the best of her. "Did they really come all the way to Cairo, just for Beni?"

Ardeth sighed. "Actually, we came to find Lock-Nah. He was not among Meela's men. But when the truth came out about Fatima, Abd-al-Rashid and his sons were the first to volunteer to come to Cairo."

Hattie stifled a chuckle, shaking her head. "You can't really blame them for wanting to kill him..."

"No," he agreed. "But a very thorough beating will have to suffice."

Hattie winced at the thought of it, "He won't be too pleased about that."

"No," Ardeth said. "But he is getting a fine wife out of it, so perhaps he will see his good fortune in time."

Hattie fought back the urge to chuckle. "I don't think he'll be too pleased about that, either, actually..."

Ardeth scoffed. Silence fell between them for a long moment, and he stared at her thoughtfully. Hattie met his eyes, confused by their mysterious darkness and the ghost of a smile lingering in the corner of his mouth.

"Perhaps I am, though," he said quietly.

Hattie's brow furrowed, staring up at him with a question written in her eyes. Before she could ask him why he was happy that Beni had essentially stolen his fiancée right out from under him, he closed the distance between them and took her in a deep kiss. Hattie sucked in a surprised breath at first, but then her body relaxed, and her arms wrapped about his neck. She pulled him closer, her whole body humming with the thrill of his touch.

Reluctantly, their lips parted, and his eyes glanced darkly down the alleyway his men had just taken. He turned his attention back to her and sighed.

"I must return to my tribe."

Hattie nodded her head. She knew she should step out of his embrace, but she enjoyed the warmth of his body against hers too much, even in the heat of the Egyptian sun.

"But...perhaps I could visit you here."

Hattie bit back a smile and nodded her head. "I would like that."

He reached a hand up to her face. "We have done things all out of order."

Hattie blushed and glanced down at her shoes. His hand slid down to her chin and gently lifted her face so that her eyes would meet his again. She was startled by the dark earnestness of his depths.

"But perhaps we might try to line them up correctly now."

Her mouth twitched, and she stared up at him curiously. She couldn't stop herself from asking, "But...why?"

His brow furrowed in confusion. "Why?"

She shrugged stiffly. "Why do you want to try...with me?"

Ardeth let out a little chuckle, and wrapped his arms around her again. "I do not know. You've just enchanted me."

Hattie smiled broadly, and he leaned down to give her another kiss. For a moment in the sunlight, it was only him and her.

**end.**


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